


Theon, King of the Commons

by thecoolestfreak



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, George copied Richard III when creating Theon and so will I, Heavy Angst, I promise it's a happy ending!!, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:34:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22092658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecoolestfreak/pseuds/thecoolestfreak
Summary: Theon stared at the grim visage in the mirror before him. He stared long, trying to imagine a day the twin wolf crown would look like it belonged there.Post-Finale | Theon rules Winterfell
Relationships: Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark
Comments: 10
Kudos: 69





	Theon, King of the Commons

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by prompt 8 for theonsa week (death), which was.. a while ago. But I'm quite proud of this one. The quotes underneath all parts are from _Richard III. _Enjoy, friends.__

PART ONE

_My conscience hath a thousand several tongues_

The worst day of his life came on a snowy afternoon. Winter had come and gone, leaving tepid winds and the occasional light snowfall. 

Sansa liked when it snowed, and Theon had to admit he didn’t mind it. It was not his _favourite_ weather, but he liked when she was happy, and he liked to watch as she held out her hand to catch the flakes. His favourite weather was, predictably, rain, and when he reminded her of this it made her sigh and shake her head, as if to say _what am I going to do with you._

Theon found her outside that day, one hand out and the other on the arm of a servant, animatedly complaining. Theon only paid attention half the time so he had little idea what the complaint was about, but he saw Sansa gesture to another servant to enter the conversation. 

Sometimes she liked to do her dealings outside. She hated to be shut up for too long, too much reminded of being prisoner; he understood and often felt the same, especially on long days where the march of people and their problems seemed never ending. 

While she was engaged in conversation, Theon puttered about, helping out here and there in the courtyard. He’d taken a liking to the blacksmith; Theon was fond of his two young sons who would rush about and shriek as they chased each other. He did not think the blacksmith knew why Theon watched over them so, more than the other children in Winterfell, but he let the queen’s hand do as he liked. All of the commonfolk in the North treated him so — he wasn’t harming anyone, even with the odds things he said and did… so they let him be.

When he retreated to the kennels on the worst of days, sometimes it wasn’t Sansa who found him. The stable boy, Marco, took to searching him out if he disappeared. His domain where he studied under his father was not far, so the boy often caught Theon’s eye as he hurried past. 

Marco gave him a respectful nod as he led one of the horses by, and Sansa motioned for Theon to come over. He caught only the last snippet of conversation. 

“I’m pleased, your grace,” a new man was saying, dressed in thicker fur, smiling beside the two servants who looked thoroughly put-upon. “The heroine of the North deserves nothing short of her heart’s desire.”

Unconsciously, Sansa looked at him, and in shame Theon averted his eyes, examining the clouds. It was not a reaction he wished to confront, though he knew he could not avoid it forever.

* * *

Hours later, they were still outside. 

“It’s still snowing,” she told him. This was an excuse, told to conceal her desire to see all and every person who wanted a minute of her time — and she told it because she knew exactly how he would react. 

“You’ve been at this for hours,” he replied. Predictable of him, he would admit, but it didn’t make it untrue. “You need rest.”

She muttered something under her breath, which he chose to ignore, finding the little smile on her face too fascinating to gather the energy to lecture her about the statistics of illness and weak leadership in those who got less sleep. She’d heard it all before, besides, and it falls on deaf ears every time — as did most advice when it came to personal matters. 

But he felt odd today, and wanted to keep this game between them going. “You’ll make all kinds of bad decisions if you don’t listen to your hand.” 

“I will not put the land in adventure with a field, if that’s your concern,” she teased back. “I’ve had enough of war for a lifetime.” 

“I’m only concerned that we’ll never entirely repair the North, and you’ll drain yourself dry trying to make it happen.” He paused, forcing himself to be light again. “At least if we make a mess of it, it’ll be good sport for the servants.” 

That made her laugh loudly, which he was glad to hear. He would remember the way it made his ears ring pleasantly for the rest of his days. 

“Queen Sansa,” a voice said, and she turned to meet it, and he wished he’d come to his wits enough to push her out of the way. 

“Sansa!” he barked, but it was too late. The dagger slid into her chest like butter. She looked down at it oddly, wide-eyed, as if she didn’t quite understand what was happening. 

Theon slid to his knees, catching her as she fell. The mud seeped into his calves, cold and flesh-like, the two of them sinking and sinking. Shouts and screams echoed around the courtyard. 

“Theon,” she whispered, gripping his tunic in her red hands. 

His mind had barely caught up to his body before he was moaning. “Oh, gods— gods, no, no.” There was blood all over. 

Men had already seized the traitor, shoving him into the castle walls, where he would be dragged further down into the dungeons. Theon’s eyes were only for her. 

“Maester!” he shouted, almost despondent, but she was gripping his tunic harder. He pressed a hand deeper into her wound, desperate to keep her intact. Someone barreled into his shoulder in a rush to get past but he barely registered the pain. 

“I love you,” she said.

“Don’t! Don’t.” He pleaded with his eyes as well as his voice, he was sure, as he clung and clung to something that was fading, as he always had. 

Sansa looked only at him. Only at him. “Theon,” she kept saying, like it was a comfort, like a child clutching a toy, and he was choking on sobs. 

“No, wait, wait for me.” He leaned down and pressed his cheek to hers, listening for a breath. Someone was pulling something, somewhere. “Wait for me.”

There were no breaths. 

* * *

They drag him off her. He would not let go. 

He was oddly silent and still before they’d manhandled him, stuck in a spiral of frantic and desperate questions, starting with _how? how—_ he was still squeezing her between his arms and against his chest, certain she would return in just a moment, if they just _waited_ like he did —

And then they’d tried to pull him, and he was screaming, wild and feral and agonised, and what seemed like fifty men peeled his hands off her. 

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he knew he shouldn’t act like this. But Sansa was the queen. _She_ was composed, clever and strategic, a leader, not him, not him, he didn’t know how to do any of it. He didn’t know what to do. His entire life — hope for a new world — robbed, in a moment and —

He didn’t know what to _do._ He didn’t know what to do _but_ scream. 

* * *

_Theon,_ a voice whispered in his ear. It sounded like a death bell. _Theon._

His fingers twitched, itching to crush and crush until he shattered his own bones. She always did this, every morning and every night, through her eyes when she did not move her mouth. 

_Theon._

He could almost feel her breath on his ear. 

“Go away.” His voice was barely there, cracked and bleeding at the edges. “Leave me alone.”

The voice disappeared, the warm breath gone. Theon shot up. She’d done what he asked, oh gods, she always did, even when he was being stupid and shut himself away for days. 

“Wait!” he wailed. “ _Wait for me!”_

* * *

When he was at his worst, Sansa would bring him something hot; milk, lemon tea, anything and everything she could think of. The selection of cakes and sweets available was severely lacking in the North, so she’d tell him, before pressing a few biscuits bunched together into his hand. In the other his drink would sit, and he drank it, every drop, if only to see the pleased smile on her face. 

Then between mouthfuls he’d tell her what was on his mind. She was clever, like that — plying him with a soothing drink to get him to speak. But it was always kindly meant, her skills and talents she’d learned in the South used kindly, to protect him or her kingdom. She was only ever kind, passing along biscuits and tea like it would cure all the world’s ills. 

He hid his head in his hands. 

* * *

He knew he should write and tell Jon. Then Arya, Bran, the rest of the kingdom. He was sure it had already spread from Winterfell out, and he imagined that his cries already reached the Wolfswood and further long before any grave messengers did. 

If he kept it to himself, inside his chest and inside this castle and nowhere else, perhaps it would not be true. Besides, his hands shook too much when he tried to pick up a feather. What would he write, to her own brothers and sister? _My most dear and well beloved companion the queen has…_ no, he could not endure it.

* * *

Anger was the only thing he felt in days.

The traitor’s trial was quick, almost hurried, the people desperate for his death. The maester, who had tended to Theon in his darkest moments, recently and years ago, spoke to him when no one else dared to.

“Anything else, your grace?”

“Don’t call me that,” Theon retorted, glaring straight into the traitor’s eyes. The man was on his knees glaring back, something about him that made Theon uneasy. It was simple to chop off a man’s head than to uncover why he’d done the crime in the first place. He was not speaking, and the people wouldn’t particularly care to hear it if he did.

“You are the only highborn here, your grace,” the maester pointed out. “The only one able to lead this trial.”

“I’m not your king. Take him back to his cell, the execution is tomorrow.”

As two guards dragged the man away, the maester bounced on his heels, face grim. “I’m afraid you’re acting like one,” he replied lowly.

Scowling, Theon resorted to staring at the wall now that the traitor was gone. The title made his stomach turn. “Jon Snow will return eventually. I’m keeping the peace until he does.”

As much as he tried to ignore the old man’s verdict, his damningly doubtful expression made Theon’s stomach twist twice as hard. 

* * *

“Your sword,” a boy said — he couldn’t remember the name and did not care to — holding out the blade across one forearm, his breath twirling in the cold air. The North’s weather turned back to freezing when Sansa died. At least — it felt like it to him. 

He gave a grumble of thanks and took it, taking clomping steps up to the creaky wooden scaffold. It had to be built in a hurry, for Sansa had torn down the last one and used the wood for better endeavours. It was thought there would be no more unjust bloodshed in the North.

The wind whipped his overcoat, flapping a ruckus against his chest, heedless as he crossed to face the man who was bent over on his knees, half turned to watch his encroaching fate. 

“Last words?” 

There was a silence that the wind took as excuse enough to whistle, the solemnity of the crowd’s frowning faces and the grey clouds above all together a picture of misery. 

“Mercy,” the man begged. His voice was thick, accented, and Theon kept this knowledge to himself. 

“You did not give mercy to _her_ , did you?” he spat back, the sword starting to shake with the pure force of his restraint. “Do you expect me to show you any?”

The man said nothing more. His black beard fluttered in the wind.

“I’ve heard your words.” _I’ve looked into your eyes._ Theon felt no guilt. 

Try as he may to take no more pleasure in war, he revelled in the _thump_ the man’s head made as it hit the wood.

* * *

Once, it had been her most sincere wish to die as a Southern queen, shrouded in gold and lavish cloth, mourned by the smallest of folk, entirely beloved by the realm. 

This wish tripled tenfold when Joffrey arrived, spurned by his princely fashion to detail exactly what she wanted, no matter who was around to hear; it was all _when I marry Joffrey this_ , _when I marry Joffrey that._

Theon did not know how the South felt of her, but he knew without a doubt what her homeland felt. There was no expense spared, even from the beggars, who put a coin they’d kissed into her coffin as she went by. The tailors and weavers draped the wood in light purple satin, cloth-of-gold under her head, to compliment the silver of her coronation dress, which had been his choice — he could give her that wish, at least. 

The statue joined the buried coffin later, the inscription his own, one he’d written in the deep of night and passed along in the morning. His knees wobbled as he knelt to trace it with one lonely finger. Looking up, the sight of her statue engulfing his vision, towering over him, he wished the stone would come crashing down on him. Lady was curled at her feet. Sansa’s face was meticulously carved, a perfect image, and he found himself long on his knees, begging it to come to life. 

“She’d be proud of you,” the Southern king said, sat next to him beside the statue. The two of them were silent in their prayers, though he wondered if Bran made any. 

Theon’s chest burned. _Do you feel nothing at all,_ he wanted to say, but sealed his lips. 

Bran was silent regardless, staring with the kind of bland curiosity one might stare at a painting, or a nice lake, not the grave of your sister. 

The entire Southern retinue arrived for her funeral, but Theon couldn’t talk to any of them; he had no stomach for it, to look into their scheming eyes and know they lived while she did not. Bran was the only one he didn’t hate, and that was because he was frightening. 

“I’m sending messengers to retrieve Jon,” Theon told him, speaking low to respect the hundreds of graves around him. 

“Call them off. You need to stay.”

Still on his knees, Theon turned his head to look at Bran, assessing the seriousness of his expression. It was, as always, blank as a fresh scroll, his neatly combed brown hair down to his ears, the fine black doublet making him look every bit the king he was.

“You make a jest,” Theon breathed, incredulous. Bran stayed blank, which made him panic. “Bran, _how_ could I stay?”

“By staying put,” he answered. “You must.”

He felt, sometimes, when he spoke to Bran, that he was slamming himself against a stone wall made of fate and destiny. It could not be ignored, side stepped or avoided, no matter how much he tried. All of them were racing against the finite measure of time, the single element that withered their bones and greyed their hair. Bran had seen more lifetimes than any mortal man, so what could one more wasted life mean to him? 

Theon’s voice was shaky as he asked, “W—why?”

“You must,” Bran repeated. 

But he shook his head, trying futilely to deny what was right in front of him, what had been in front of him all along. “No, Jon will—“

“Jon’s not coming,” Bran cut him off. “He’s happy where he is. He’s not coming back.”

“Even with his sister gone?”

“He doesn’t know that, does he?” Bran glanced at him. “You didn’t tell him.”

Shame flushed through him, hot and cramping, to his toes and up to his cheeks. “I tried.” 

“It doesn’t matter, it won’t make a difference. He won’t come back.”

Theon felt another, odder sort of grieving, even if he’d only known the bastard of Winterfell peripherally. This castle was full of ghosts. 

“I don’t want to stay,” he said, and it was both familiar and surprising. In the past, he didn’t mind living in Winterfell, not with his new duties to keep him up all day and send him to sleep quickly at night, but without his friend, without Sansa...

“We all make sacrifices,” Bran replied. 

It would’ve annoyed him, or worse, _hurt_ , but he didn’t expect the youngest living Stark to care about anyone anymore, least of all him. He’d offered a perfunctory _you’re a good man_ before he’d been injured, but then he was about to die. This time, as far as Bran knew, he would live years and years. _And isn’t that a miserable thought._

“How long do I have to stay?”

Bran did not speak. Theon didn’t repeat himself, afraid of the answer. 

* * *

Clamping the top with a finger and thumb, he ran the lock of hair through the gaps between his fingers on his other hand, wishing he had more than these strands to touch. A whole head of hair, and the head with it — the body it was attached to, while he was wishing for things, but then he would be wishing for her and he did that every moment regardless. 

_For luck,_ she told him, cutting at the tip from the back of her neck. 

_For what?_

He felt her prying open his hand, then pressing the lock into his palm. His heart was arrested in time, for as long as these seconds would last, like an hourglass turned upside-down. 

_For whatever use you may wish._ She smiled, then, and he knew she had done it to fulfil the fanciful wishes of a theatrical love. It did not mean the gesture meant any less than it did, just because it was a maidenly thing to do; his heart thudding would attest to that. Accepting the lock, he enclosed her hand between both of his own, fingertips tingling at her touch. 

_I’ll think of you when I look upon it_ , he said, and knew he pleased her by the softening of her eyes. 

Theon ran his fingers through it again. Outside, the servants were snuffing the candles that lit their evening work, and would be back at dawn to continue. Ever since they’d lost their sovereign's structure and guidance, they were aimless in their trades, and chaos was likely to erupt sometime soon. 

She had been a stable presence for so many, and him too, but when he thought of her he thought of different things, of the lock in his hands. Of the box open in front of him, of the things splayed on his bed. Her things, one of many boxes he kept ever since he’d been strong enough to look through her drawers. He thought of her softness, her love of romance, her favourite foods and her favourite book of poetry; all things the servants down there did not and would never know. 

He fiddled with the lock, draping it over his knuckles, in the parts between his fingers, in the middle of his palm, as Sansa had done.

_I’ll think of you._

* * *

He argued, and rowed and shouted and screamed, once, but it was all for naught. The people would not hear no for an answer. It was this, they said — the common folk in Winterfell, that was — or all out civil war, where Northern lord would fight Northern lord. 

All because of awful fate he found himself sitting in the direwolf throne, a crown for his betters atop his head. He wished he could ask Bran _why_ , and demand a good answer.

The maester gave him a most pitying look as he picked up Theon’s new cage. Many were made of metal, but none so worse as this one.

_“There is no one else, my lord…”_

A _peasant_ would make a better king than him. _This_ king, more than others; Robb’s Crown, Jon’s, Sansa’s, all good and all together not him, not the blighted waste of air that was fortunate to be loved by Ned Stark’s last heir… and crowned because of it. 

* * *

He repeatedly denied himself a feast, the event no celebration. The people, though… and they were his people now, he supposed, even if it made him feel sick to think it…

Well, they needed some merriment. So he let them laugh, let them eat and drink their fill. He let them give him gifts he’d throw into the fire later.

One lord spat on his boots. The rest of the hall, especially the servants on the corners had come forward to restrain the lord, but Theon only watched disinterestedly. 

“You’re no king of mine!” the lord shouted, wildly pointing his finger about. Hoping he might reveal a dagger and gut him like had been done to Sansa, Theon sat still, waiting. “One day the North will thrust you off this throne and you’ll regret the day you came slinking back.”

“Kill me today or kill me tomorrow, it matters not to me,” Theon monotoned back. 

Theon thought about what the lord said the rest of the night, turning it over and over. Asking himself why they called for him to take the mantle at all if this is how they’d react, some taking his side and some crying the decay of the North with an ironborn at its helm. 

He never wanted to incite a war, but there was no one else. He hated to admit it but the people were right. Jon and Arya were gone, and Bran sent a cryptic letter reinforcing his words, further encouraging Theon to stay in Winterfell. _You do not want to miss it when it comes._

His boy’s scribbles that Theon knew from the lessons they took together as children — albeit in distinctly different stages of childhood — were gone, erased as if they’d never been there. King Bran’s penmanship was flawless, as if he had been writing for a hundred years. Theon felt as if he had been alive for a hundred years, too. 

Suddenly very tired, he rose from his chair. 

“Send Marco to my chambers. I need someone to get me out of this cage,” he grumbled to the first person who caught his eye, pulling at his collar. 

Later, as the former stable boy was fumbling with the buttons he glanced at Theon’s face, back and forth until he’d had enough. 

“Speak, if you must.”

Marco kept his eye on his moving hands. “I’m glad that you are our king, your grace.”

Theon licked his lips. They were dry, his throat cracked, as he had only able to handle a sip or two of ale tonight. “Why are you glad?”

“Whuh—“ Marco blinked. He had bright blue eyes that stuck out on his face, reminding him of Podrick even with the different colour. “You’re the Hero of the Godswood. The queen… the queen trusted you. Better you than a tyrant she would never approve of in her stead.”

“How do you know I’m not a tyrant?”

Marco paused in his work. “You’ve been helping the queen all this time.”

“Aye, I have.” He swallowed, exhaling a long breath in the thick silence. “But I’m no king. What did you think when I asked for you to assist me here instead of the stables?”

“I… did not think much of anything, your grace.” Marco continued shifting the outer part of his tunic over his shoulders.

“You have no need to be afraid of me,” Theon told him, noticing the way Marco’s eyes slid from his work to Theon’s face… to check he had not angered him, he knew well. “Remember the times you have found me in the kennels?”

The boy nodded stiffly. He folded his outer coat with care for the edges, reducing the creases the maids would have to endure. 

“Well, I cannot be too scary if I hide away in the kennels, can I?”

“That was before you were king, your grace.” 

“True enough.” He flexed his shoulders as they were freed. Hoping Marco didn’t notice the litany of scars across his chest, he turned to the side to disguise them. Marco made no move to say anything more, and it surprised Theon that it hurt him, that this boy trusted him less with a crown on his head. 

“Thank you, Marco. You may go.”

As the door shut, Theon turned front facing to observe himself in the mirror. With his expensive coronation coat off, he looked like an ordinary man. He ran his palm along his chest, closer to the skin than he’d been all day, and wondered if there was anything underneath. He looked tired, bone deep exhausted, long lines on his face, a permanently furrowed brow. Sickly, pale and haggard, but he always looked this way after his escape. 

He wondered if Sansa felt like this. He hoped not; he’d been there to watch her own coronation, he and Jon and Arya lining the walls. He hoped she had not felt as he did now, sick and miserable and lonely. 

But… there it was again. The thought that stopped him leaving a thousand times, stopped him from throwing together a pack and stealing a horse. 

He was not here for his own sake. At least, not yet. These were Sansa’s people, and they needed someone to keep them out of wars; to feed them, to run themselves ragged, to drive themselves to madness in their favour… 

Could he be that man? 

He’d always wanted to be a king, hadn’t he?

He dreamt about it day and night, what the islands might look like when he returned, what the crown would feel like on his head, how his father and sister would revel in his coronation. And here the gods were, handing him a twisted version of what he’d wanted. 

Theon stared at the grim visage in the mirror before him. He stared long, trying to imagine a day the twin wolf crown would look like it belonged there.

PART TWO

_Plead what I will be, not what I have been_

The moons passed too fast and awfully slow. 

At first, he was not a spectacularly popular king. He never expected to be; the Starks were a dynastic family, sheltered but lauded by the people, and by his very nature he was seen to be defying a thousand years of tradition.

But he had newfound mettle, and Theon found he was not willing to give up so easily. Without Sansa to shield him, the barbs came quicker than they ever had, and he found himself building a thicker skin fast, growing into the mind of a man of 40 compared to his true age.

Convincing the people of his worthiness was a torturous activity, thankless and fruitless, a task that more often than not left him blinking into the dark with burning eyes, on his knees in prayer — for more than success, he would admit — weeping, too deep in his cups or simply shut away, calmed by the familiar cramped position he would curl himself into in the corner of his chamber. 

Still he tried. He would not give up. Loyalty was won, not bought or bargained for, and none were so hard to win their love as Northmen. 

To his utter shame, he even distributed documents that proclaimed he married Sansa in secret, passing the crown along the lines of genealogy rather than the weaker claim of her nomination. Twelve days he let these hang in Winterfell and Wintertown, but he stopped the cart that was riding further in a breathless hysteria, the plea ending in setting the remaining parchments alight and watching them burn. 

There were many reasons he could not stomach them, but most of all that he only advertised what he _wished_ were true. If he did not love her so — and respect her family, even if he’d been their very own prisoner — perhaps he would be able to watch the lie spread. 

He tried other things. Succeeding in claiming trade deals with Dorne and the kingdoms that Bran governed helped, but the contracts were only a continuation of what Sansa already achieved. Yara returned, for a lone week, to partake in what she snidely called _fucking theatre,_ which was true — but the palpable relief when she signed her name and promised never to invade the North was hard to dismiss. 

Theon thanked her publicly, as all good rulers should, but behind closed doors he held up his end of the bargain, which was to sign his own contract, proclaiming Yara the one and only heir to the Iron Islands. 

Both the Greyjoy siblings were happy for their small victories, and parted ways with a promise to meet again before the other died. _Don’t die so far from the sea,_ Yara commanded him again, as if to remind him of the first time she’d said those words. He would not, he assured. 

* * *

The streets of Wintertown were daily occupied by families wheeling their life’s possessions on carts in the street. It was piteous to see, and Theon had seen and experienced many piteous things. _I will change this... yes, I will._

Sansa had done her best in a time of great reformation and turmoil, settling the worst of the losses through a decade of constant war, but there was still work to be done, a legacy left for him by the woman he loved, and he would see it done if he had to give his life for it. This town wasn’t much but it was his.

He waited for this particular family to pass before he ventured to cross the street, narrowly avoiding the expelled contents of a chamber pot thrown from the window he’d been standing under. The common people were getting on with their day, haggling with street vendors, stools bursting with vegetables, fruits, other delights that virtually disappeared during the war. There was even a thick bearded man selling sweets, just on the corner, the line four people deep. A splash of yellow caught Theon’s eye. Lemons. Only a few, but they’d seen a spike in demand and popularity. 

He would buy some on the way back. 

The houses that circled the town were more richly endowed than the ones in the inner streets, bought and owned most exclusively by the middle class folk. There was one merchant who refused to sell his goods to the South. Theon spent hours at work, drafting documents that would first please the town’s traders, with the aim of bringing it to Bran’s advisors and settling upon a mutually beneficial agreement. They all agreed save one.

The house he was looking for was on the end of the row, pointedly built with a stone pathway to avoid the mud on either side. While he couldn’t disagree that the streets were rather filthy, saturated with mud, sharp bits and gods knows what else, they all had to use them, wealthy or not. 

It was not the middle of the night. The merchant would not be asleep, but Theon had him followed at the end of their last fruitless meeting, and he knew that this merchant was a frequent customer of the brothel. Whatever he may think of that, it was useful information; Theon planned to use it to blackmail the married idiot. 

Slinking into the shadows beneath the overhang of the upper floor, Theon laid himself flat against the wall and tugged the hood that covered his face tighter in case it fell. He listened, and heard nothing — but there was a flickering candle, perhaps attached to a wall. Theon gently pushed open the metal grates that made up the window and lifted one leg inside, then the other, immediately crouching.

In a stroke of luck, the merchant had brought his merchandise home tonight. In a blanketed heap on the floor, two women were draped over him, all three snoring away.

Theon approached slowly, careful of his footing and the creaky floor. In his pocket waited a letter that would displease the snoring merchant considerably, and he couldn’t help but smile a little as he put it on the nearest table. He turned to leave, but his feet stilled.

He could be a prince of thieves, if he wanted; robbing the wealthy and enriching the poor, a surer way to assure none of his subjects would starve than fighting a political back and forth with lords and clerks who would never back down, even with their heads at stake. Theon had never thought of himself as a robber, but it was the least of his sins.

Reaching forward, he decided Marco needed some new clothes and books, and pinched the purse that sat beside the letter before hopping out. 

* * *

The Wintertown tavern was familiar to him, a constant place of pleasure in his youth, but of greater importance was the men found in it, rather than the women; gambling, games and ale were everyman’s pastime… as well as gossip, rumour and political score-keeping. 

Theon kept his hood on, slinking into the back chairs easily, cornering the barmaid, and procuring himself a tankard for the realism it would give to any outsider studying him. 

For hours, Theon listened; he had nothing better to do at the castle, where he would only brood all evening if he was left alone. Marco would help his father some nights, and the servants had lives and families of their own. 

It was only after his left leg ceased feeling that he heard anything of use, spoken by a most rambling drunkard to the centre of the tavern, who was rattling his dice so fervently in his palms Theon could hear the rattling from the back bench.

“There _is_ a curse, I say!”

“A _curse?_ ” Another man echoed, laughing so hard he began to cough, and drowning it with the loud slurps of perhaps his fifth cup. “You’re mad.” But as the silence came back, curiosity got the better of him. “ _Alright_ , on who?”

“Us,” the drunk answered merrily. “The kingdom.”

“What kind of curse?”

In the other corner of the tavern, there was a shuffle, the clunk of dice being thrown, and cheers that covered the drunk’s answer.

“And who did it?” the second man asked, the shouts quietening down after many pats on the back. 

“Why, the author of all our misfortunes…” the drunk shifted, making a gesture Theon could not see. He wished he could turn around, but the risk of being recognised was too great. “The _stately_ queen, the Targaryen!”

Theon tried to keep his mouth shut. “We have only one queen,” he spoke suddenly, directing the hiss right to the drunken man. 

It was a impulsive, stupid thing to do — in fact, the one thing he told himself _not_ to do, speak up — but calling Daenerys the _stately_ queen annoyed him, when there was a perfectly legitimate one who had laboured two years for them, even when she wasn’t queen.

“Did I ask you to speak, whoreson?”

Theon grit his teeth, cheeks aflame, and stared into his untouched ale. _Say no more. Do not let him provoke you…_

“The dragon queen is dead,” he continued, kicking himself as he did. “She’s no threat to us.”

“So’s our one, as much good as she was.”

Theon’s entire body lit up, from his toes to his head, like he’d been hit by direct strike of lightning. He sat there, blood rushing through his ears, staring at his ale so hard if it were a man he would combust. 

There he waited, muscles tensed so tight they were screaming, and he knew he would feel it for many days to come. He waited patiently, silently, acutely aware his temper could indanger himself and all he had fought for; he sat and listened to the patrons begin to leave, and he waited until he could safely escape without scrutiny. 

The alley beside the tavern was a dingy, dark place; a slice of hell if Theon had ever seen one, most notably made so by the couple having indecently loud sex only a feet behind him, the large and ulcerus scars on their arms and faces knowledge enough to keep him clear of them both. 

But he was not stood there to listen to sighs and moans, nor keen releases. The man he was waiting for passed by not a few minutes later, and as Lady Luck would have it, whipped out his cock and began to piss in a puddle just beside Theon’s shoe.

Theon deliberated, for an extended moment, if he should do what he planned to. He’d been no saint in his younger life, nor in this one, a killer of children and betrayer of vows, whether it was to a king or common man. He knew not what was right, and even less how to determine such a vague factor, especially in the world he lived in. But he felt, somewhere in him, that he wanted to do this, whether it was right or wrong. 

“Small cock for such a big mouthed man,” he said. 

The stream did not pause. “Fuck off.”

Theon hit him before he could get out another word, sending him spiralling into the piss strewn mud. 

“What the _fu—!”_

Slower and more deliberate punches were far more satisfying than the initial frenzy. It scared Theon how _angry_ he was, how like a wild animal he could fight. If he had claws he would rip him in two. He wished, oddly, as he landed a crunching blow to the drunk’s face, that he had his own wolf that he could set upon people. His fists were his claws. 

Through fate or pure fortune, his hood had not fallen even when someone began to pry him off, and he let him do so in case he pulled it off.

“Leave it, man,” the gruff stranger warned, pushing him away to stand between the two. “He’s pissed out of his mind.”

“All the better reason to bring him back to it,” he spit. 

“I’ve beaten my fair share of drunks. They’ll not listen or learn, so you’re wasting your time.”

Finally, his blood calmed to a simmer, and he observed the stranger. He was not the drunk’s friend in the tavern, nor one of the city watch, but he possessed the same undistinguished look of every Northern warrior. There were many aimless fighters wandering the streets with the war over. 

“Thank you, I suppose.” With shame, Theon recalled the last time he’d been a servant of senseless violence and bowed his head. “Aye, thank you.”

It was only then that he noticed the man was staring at him, and not just any part of him — straight into his face. “You’re the…”

Unclipping it from his belt in one hurried movement, the bag of gold clinked as Theon held it out. “I trust this will be our secret.” 

The silence dragged. The couple behind him ran away when he’d began beating the drunk who now laid unconscious in the mud, oblivious to the unhooded king stood before him. 

Finally, the do-gooder let out an incredulous chuckle, taking the bag with aplomb. “I won’t speak a word.” He examined Theon with stifled amusement. “Your grace, King of the Commons,” he mused, giving a short bow. 

* * *

When he returned to the castle through the servant’s entrance he was rubbing his eyes, feeling thick and exhausted, but he plodded to the hall and took his seat as he had done everyday for nigh a year. 

“A gift, your grace,” a stately lord said a little later, when the hall was full and watching. “Two gold bowls and a fine looking glass.”

“Practical,” Theon praised, putting the gifts to one side of his table. He hoped they would melt well into coins before he gave them to the poor. “And pleasant. Thank you. What matter do you wish to bring to my attention?”

“Ah, that. I, ah, have a slight… issue with the current population.” He paused, deliberating the best way to put it. "Since every pauper became a lord, many a lord has been made a pauper. This has put us… _true_ lords in a precarious position.” 

"You are not protesting the reforms of the late Queen, are you, my lord? Because that would not be wise."

The lord glanced into the crowd, oblivious to the warning daggers they were glaring back. “I am. Such blatant disregard for the nobility that nurtured the late Queen herself —”

“Should she have had respect for her elders, those that rallied the wars first?” In some ways, he was in that alley once more, beating that drunk. The same slander, the same mouths, only these ones were better fed, and played their games with words instead of fists. 

“Tradition — your grace, is not easily swayed, you are not…” he hesitated, “ _knowledgeable_ of our culture.”

“I lived here for a decade,” he cooly reminded him, surprising himself. “I had a Northern education, ate Northern food, fucked Northern women, and had a Northern blade hanging over my neck. I am not clueless and empty headed, no matter how much you are determined to hate me.” 

He’d surprised the lord, too, and set the crowd amurmur. A quick rejoinder would be needed, and on a whim he decided instead to have a wicked kind of fun; he recalled his earlier thievery with joy. “No matter, I am convinced, my lord. You speak well.”

The lord’s eyebrows rose. “Thank you, your grace. I can expect—?”

“Aye, soon,” he faked a smile. “Detail to my servant here exactly what you want.” Theon gestured to Marco, who looked like he was trying to hold in a laugh. “Let me keep you no longer.”

When the lord departed with his slimy smile, Theon felt a genuine one break out on his own face and moved to cover it with a hand. _Fool. Easily led and easily deceived_ … everyone knew well that he, as the queen’s hand, had written those reforms in part, and still the lord thought he could bid him to do as he wanted like a dog? 

He laughed, then; a most mischievous sound. Perhaps there was some fun to be found in ruling.

* * *

The end of the day was occupied by his cloak and dagger antics, eavesdropping and chronicling the commoner’s problems, but the night was occupied by a different kind of masquerade. His dreams were a mix of horror, joy, love and despair, all in equal measure, visions that chained him to his bed. Some days, Marco had to roll him out in the morning, the boy trying desperately to hide his amusement. 

Tonight, he’d been hounded by three men: one wore a crown, the other bow and arrow; the third flickered, unable to be seen in one blink, but he held something in his hand, and Theon was very afraid of it. 

“Woman make men tame, sir, as lions make leopards.”

“Aye, but not change his spots.” The armed man lined up his shot. “No woman can do that.” As he let the arrow whizz into nothingness the crowned man beside him laughed, and he involuntarily winced at the sound; men’s laughs made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, though he knew not why. 

“You’re a good killer,” the man said. What was that in his hand? Theon squinted, trying to see — he could make out the edges, a faint circular line, jagged at the bottom, with two holes in the middle… he jolted away, no longer curious to look. 

“The best,” agreed another. “No man has taken two princes off the board before.”

“They weren’t princes,” Theon objected faintly. 

“They bleed as princes do,” the third man answered.

The crowned man looked at Theon, straight into his eyes and past that, like he knew what was inside. “No matter how much you change, your spots are always there, on the surface and in your blood. Is that not strange?” 

Theon whipped around, to do something — shout, perhaps, but his voice was gone — and so were they. In their place were two knights, engaged in a battle to the death, swinging and thrusting with interspersed pants. Would they kill each other here, in his domain?

One knight landed a great blow upon the other’s leg and the armour fell away, revealing a grotesque stump. Half deformed, less than he was, _what beast am I_ … 

He turned again, and Sansa was seated opposite, leaning upon his hand. “Rest, for a while,” she sung. They were surrounded by a castle’s walls. Ones he knew well, his captor and prison both. 

“I can’t.” Was it his voice, or another him? Was it him at all? 

“You’ve worked yourself to the bone these last weeks,” Sansa needled him, giving a familiar incline of her head. “And it has been very long since…”

“I know.” He wanted to smack the man in his body; he knew but she did not, _tell her, you utter fool._

Remembering this exchange, he began to pound against the walls but he did not move — _go, go, go_ he called into the black, on deaf ears and blank minds — and he watched Sansa’s face drop, the curtains in her eyes close.

“I will see you tomorrow, then.” 

The he that he inhabited followed her with his eyes as she rose from the low window pane, where they sat many an hour and long into the nights, that was, before… 

_Her hand, her hand, take her hand!_ He rattled the walls. There was no answer. The he that was not he followed her still with his head but not his body, and Theon despaired as she left. 

Awakening was no great relief oftentimes; but he found an exception today, as he blinked up at the ceiling. 

Outside, the vast land was bathed blue, but a pocket of red lit that made him sit up. He squinted, and stared, but could not make it out. There would be no red in the North but for burning fires, and this was no fire… Theon examined it until dawn, where it disappeared between one blink and the next.

* * *

“I’ll hear the complaints,” he said, thrusting a tired hand in the air. 

Last night’s dream kept creeping back, showing him the crowned man, most of all — for at the end, his helmet with his gold plated crown was knocked straight off his head, to land in the dirt shortly followed by his beaten body, his skull cracked and red trickling to embed itself in the golden lines. 

The two commonfolk who stood in front of Theon entered seeking the crown’s judgement many a time… on the same issue. Those stupid goats and their wayward behaviour would drive him mad. 

“—and see, your grace, he stole my Bessie again. After he said he would not, no less!”

“They are _my_ animals! Your grace, I did _not_ promise—“

“Hear me, gentlemen!” Theon silenced them. “I have no way of knowing what either of you promised or didn’t. Is there any proof?”

“There— well, there—“ came one, at the same time the other merely spluttered. 

“This is the fifth time you have brought this to me,” Theon lamented. He would like to leave them to bicker all night and day, but he’d heard it all before, and he feared he might lose his temper if he had to sit through another speech about goats. “For the love of the gods, split the two goats between you.”

The first man scowled. “So I’ll have no satisfaction?”

“Not unless you eat your goat and the taste delights you.” 

A murmur went through the people gathered at the corners and he glanced at them. They were used to his asides, he assumed, witty they may or may not be. 

“What, have I offended?”

None spoke up for a moment, an awkward silence freezing the room. The second man spoke: “I think they are questioning your tone, your grace.”

“My tone?” He glanced at them again. “It’s never offended before.”

Then a voice spoke, shrouded in the shadows: “It was my entrance, sir, that caused the silence.”

Theon tried, but he could not make the figure out, one of many in that crowd. Ignoring the informal title, he replied patiently. “And who would you be?”

The man stepped out into the lantern light, but he was no more than an ordinary man; drab, bald, dressed in plain, scratchy excuses for clothing. 

No lord, then. “Greetings. I have just finished settling this dispute…” he gave the two men holding their goats a glance, “come and introduce yourself?”

As the two men grumbled and shuffled off, so did the new man come forward. Now that Theon could see him closer, he noted the details of his face; scars, little ones, especially on his hands. A labourer.

“You have come for my help. Tell me how I may assist you.” Dutifully, the man did; at length, with details, but at least it was not over the matter of goats. “And your employment, what do you do?”

“I am the farmer, who lives on the outskirts of the Wolfswood, your grace.”

Theon froze. The murmurs began to make sense, everything falling into place, revealing a horrific nightmare that wiped him speechless. The crowd began again, and even Marco to the side looked aghast. Was he old enough to know? Was he old enough to understand who his king was?

Bizarrely, Theon thought of the many nights he spent talking with Marco, starved for companionship and nowhere to turn. Would that be over now? 

“I…” The worst part of it all was the farmer looked unaffected, his face revealing nothing. Hiding beneath there was an unparalleled anger, Theon was sure. It would simmer up any moment. “T—thank you for bringing this to me,” he struggled, finding his usual platitudes worthless. “Tell me more.”

Should he ignore it, that unspoken monstrosity lurking between them, between every man and woman standing in this hall? Would that make him look like a monster? Would it make him look ignorant?

The farmer talked on, oblivious, perhaps, but Theon doubted that such a healthy looking man could lose his memory. The man talked, and Theon feebly agreed to whatever it was he’d asked for, and then the man left. 

“Excuse me,” Theon breathed, half voiceless, hurrying after the farmer. Marco tried to interrupt but he waved him off, pushing past the people standing in front of the door to follow him. He tailed the man out the castle archway, a feet or two from the main road, and called out to him as loud as he could make his voice work. 

The farmer turned slowly, like he’d been expecting it. “Your grace?”

“Why didn’t you—?”

“Because you’re my king,” the farmer said, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Whether I want it or not. I’m a farmer. I can’t lead rebellions or gather armies, though I would, if I was half as rich and powerful as you or any other lord.” His eyes turned to slits, voice spitting. “What you took from me, and how you took them… you’re a beast.”

Theon’s hands shook at his sides, and his voice was shaking as he spoke. “Can you ever forgive—“

“Never,” the man cut him off. “My sons were my world. I’d sooner burn my crops than forgive you.” 

“What can I give? Other than you asked for?” On the man’s offronted step forward, Theon put his hand up in haste. “To help, not to bribe! You can have anything. I’ll not see you starve or freeze.”

“I’ll do neither, since this spring seems to last. I’ll thank you return my sons to my home and hearth, if it wipe your guilt to assist me.” 

Theon closed his eyes, bowing his head in shame so acute he could burst into flames. No words had dug deeper in all his life. “I—”

“Save your breath, your grace,” the man seethed. “Behead me if you like, I do not care for my words as a subject should. I will be glad to greet my sons again.”

Theon had nothing, no reply. All grace he gained these past moons fled like mice chased by cats. 

The farmer, breathing heavily in a furious shade of red, was silenced by his own silence, and stilled until he looked despairing. He spoke a final time, quietly. “I’ll take my leave, your grace.”

Feeling like he’d been flattened, like he’d been stretched and cut and _flayed_ , Theon watched him go. 

* * *

The farmer’s face was an awful one to remember. Red, burning, mouth tight as a pulled bowstring. The eyes, though, were the worst. In them he could see his wrong… more visceral than in his own mind, where he punished himself a thousand times for it. He did not think himself absolved, but still there was a man out there who rescinded the title of father because of him… and he was king of him, no less.

How very different the world appeared now than it had as a boy, when grey was a drab Northern colour and not a constant state, a sickening sense of being torn between two things that were as vague as the whines of spirits in the dark. 

Perhaps if he had known sooner he could have prepared, but there had been no telling him. Stubborn, arrogant and foolish, aye; he may have kept all his fingers but that boy was to be blindsided either way.

“Do you hate me, Marco?”

Theon watched his servant in the mirror. The boy stilled, hands and all, and Theon could just make out Marco’s eyes over his own shoulder. He’d been there today. He knew very well.

“What have you done that should make me hate you, your grace?”

The boy carried on pulling off his coat. 

“You do not know?”

“I know some things, though not all. And not as many as you.” 

Theon huffed, just shy of a laugh. “You would be a good fool for a Southern king, Marco. You have excellent wits when you dare let them show.” 

“Only around you, your grace.” 

That made the brief merriment disappear. “I fear you will not feel that way anymore when you hear the crimes I committed.” 

Marco handed him his nightshirt. “What crimes, your grace?”

“The farmer, today…” Theon looked into the boy’s eyes, his last chance before Marco turned away forever. “A time ago when I invaded the North and took Winterfell, I had two boys killed and burned because the youngest Starks escaped. The farmer… had taken in the two…” He stopped as his voice began to crack. “They were his, Marco. They were his sons.”

He remembered the look in Sansa’s eyes when she first glanced upon him. Hateful, anguished, rage filled blue spheres… he did not blame nor resent her for it, not then and not now. Theon would admit that it hurt, more than he thought himself able to feel at the time — and more later, when she was suffering her own tortures. 

It only hurt more when he knew her, saw her everyday, even if she crackled with lightning anger at the sight of him. She had become his victim in arms, of sorts, even if she hated him. 

He saw Marco everyday, too, and the knowing wave that washed his face sent Theon’s heart thudding against his chest. 

“Was it before you were king, your grace?”

“Aye,” he answered, frowning.

“Oh…” Marco thought for a long while. Care for Theon’s coat had been abandoned, the garment lying so slack over one arm that it scuffed the unclean floor. 

“Speak to me. Tell me I am wicked, Marco, and tell me well.”

Licking his lips, Marco’s deer-like eyes gave him an observing once-over. “You wouldn’t do that now, would you?”

“Never,” he shook his head fiercely. “Gods be good, I would hang myself in the courtyard before I did such a thing again.” 

“Then… the people have forgiven you, your grace, and so shall I.”

Theon inhaled a sharp breath. “You don’t mean it.”

“I do, your grace, and very strongly. I have been here with you for near a year now and never has a day gone by when you have not been good to me… treated me as your own. I have my own father, I know, but my brothers are cruel.”

“Marco—“

“You bid me speak, your grace, and I will speak.” 

For the first time, Marco interrupted his king; and that more than anything struck Theon into an obedient silence. 

“The farmer grieves and he has a right to it… but the North lost men in droves from the wars, schemers by your hands and others, and this is not the first grieving father in the kingdom and it will not be the last. You try, your grace. I have seen it. How you worry and pace the room… your eyes look upon yourself in the looking glass more than they ever do me. You measure yourself every night and every night you declare yourself lacking.” Marco pulled the coat from the floor, standing straighter. “I know you were not born Northern, my father has told me that, but the person someone used to be should have no bearing if they change.” 

Theon wrung his hands. “You realise you erase all responsibility in saying that? If Aerys took back his word to burn King’s Landing half way through, would it have saved the people already killed?”

“No, your grace. My brother… the oldest, Huxley, went to war for Jon Snow. He came back by the old gods’ grace but he was not the same. One night he told me what he did, the men he killed, the way he could still feel the warmth of fresh blood. He told me it would’ve been better to wipe them all out than leave a half measure like King Jon did. But half the men are living from that battle… and in peace, in their lands and with their families.”

“In the North, I would imagine?”

“Just so. It was no greater accomplishment to kill them than to let them live. You may have done horrible things, your grace, but you have done great good since.” 

“How?” he demanded, staring at those young eyes like he could pull the answers from them. 

“In too many ways to count, your grace.” 

Theon turned away first, and felt a strange cowardice for it. Marco was stood straighter than he had ever seen him. “That’s not an answer.” 

“You’ve been sovereign for a year now. We’ll be talking all night if I listed them.” 

Theon smiled a bitter smile. “Still not an answer. The people come in and the problems only seem to pile up.”

Marco hummed. “The men with the goats have nothing else to complain about. No wars, no lack of food or heat. No burned village or stolen daughters. What else have old men to turn to but goats?”

Theon studied the old stable boy. He had aged much in a year, and it struck him with sudden shame that he hadn’t taken the time to notice. There was a light in his eyes that felt so genuine Theon could do nothing but believe it. “I suppose so.” 

“There, you don’t look so pale now, your grace. The coat was fastened too tight.” 

A small smile forced itself onto his face. “Aye, the coat.”

Wordlessly, Theon changed into his nightgown, handing the rest of his day clothes to Marco and settling himself for bed. Once he was ready to retire, Theon stopped Marco from leaving.

“How have I never known you have three brothers?”

Marco laughed. It was loud, louder than that timid chuckle he’d allowed himself before. “I’ve never told you of them.” 

“Well start, Marco!” He gestured at the chair opposite his bed. “I will not sleep tonight. You know my troubles greater than you know my wardrobe. Tell me yours, for once. I like to listen.” 

* * *

“I _have_ got an eye under there, haven’t I? Because I can’t see anything.”

Trying to minimise the pain, the maid girl wiped gently, but Theon was straight faced. He’d taken more beatings than she could dream of. 

The kitchens was not the most dignified place for a king, nor was using the back door to get here, but he would rather avoid a scandal. His black eye would cause more rumour than murder — Theon was reserved, and spent little time at any gatherings he organised, and it only made curiosity about himself spread. 

“How’d you get this one, your grace? The stairs, again?”

She glanced into his eyes for a moment, standing taller as he sat on a barrel, showing plainly that she only accepted his excuses out of courtesy. 

Theon wondered if the rest of the household knew of his evening adventures — perhaps he’d been less than subtle at hiding them. Bess’ willowy daughter Anne was the only one around late tonight, but this wasn’t the first time she’d caught him sneaking back into the castle. 

“He said I was soft and I didn’t have the nerve to hit him. I had to prove him wrong, didn’t I?”

Anne said nothing, only dabbing at the corner of his eye with increased force. Little did she know, he was already aware of his faults, stuck in a spiral of his own making. He only pitied the servants who had to clean up his mess.

* * *

Yara was staring at him. Her surprise visit was a heartily welcome one, an overwhelming comfort in the face of what he’d lost. 

A small tease came to her lips as she regarded him, sat comfortably on his throne. “Couldn’t get mine, so you had to get another?”

“Get another joke,” he replied. She’d used that on her first visit. In truth, he enjoyed the ribbing, but he found the way she took offence to his sullenness amusing. 

Instead of teasing him, Yara’s wolfish smile lessened a little at first, and was gone completely a moment later. “You’re lonely, aren’t you, little brother?”

“Always,” he answered. He was to leave it there, but Yara’s sympathetic eyes drew it out of him, and she’d already dismissed her men and left them alone. “I love you. You know I do. But you couldn’t understand what I... what happened to me. No one could. Until…”

“The Stark girl,” Yara finished. She looked thoughtful, shifting her weight from one leg to the other a few times. “How did she die?”

“Stabbed.” He could barely say it. “In daylight, surrounded by people. It was snowing. She was outside because she liked the snow.”

Yara did not ask on her first visit, and Theon was glad, because the wound was still so fresh he would have assuredly broken down into tears in her presence. But that phase passed, and only revisited in the solitary dark of night. 

“I’m sorry,” Yara whispered. There was a genuine line of grief between her brow, grief for a woman she had never known, and more than anything she could’ve done, that heartened him. 

“Yara…” his voice wobbled. “I feel so lost.”

Her arms were around him solidly after the seconds it took her to cross the distance between them, and he felt cradled as she’d done to him as a small boy when he scraped his knee, and mother was busy; and despite his earlier thoughts, he began to cry. 

“Little brother,” she kept saying, her mouth muffled in his hair. “Little brother.”

* * *

Now that his sister was here for a longer stay, like a child showing off their projects, Theon showed her Winterfell. He took her to near every corner, pointing out the repairs he’d made, recounting the infamous battle he’d fought in. 

“The Stark boy, Bran,” he told her, looking up until his neck hurt, “was thrown from this tower… I’ve repaired it, see, and now I store all sorts of dry foods in case winter comes again.” 

“Will it?” Yara mused. “It’s been a year of summer.”

“The last refuge before the winter was almost a decade, remember.”

“Listening in all your northern lessons, were you?”

Theon turned his head to look at her, wincing at the soreness of his neck. “I never listened.” Yara chuckled, and it almost made him smile. “It wasn’t my lessons. It was…”

“The Stark girl, again,” Yara finished, and he noticed her stifle an eye roll for his sake.

“I’m sorry.”

She shrugged sharply. “It’s no harm to me.” Theon looked up back to the top of the tower again, thinking she was done, but she spoke again. “You loved her.”

It felt odd to admit such a feeling to another ironborn. Almost as if their kind were never meant to feel, and if they did it was always kept a secret, afraid of the shame and the scolding. But Yara was a different kind of queen, and Theon could never imagine her belittling a subject for having the gall to love. 

“I did. I still do.” 

“You’re here because you still love her. You’re _king_ here because you still love her. That’s one hell of a show of devotion.”

Turning away from the tower, Theon looked instead on the children who were playing a ways away from them, with dolls and hoops and laughter. “Are you going to tell me I’m stupid for clinging to someone long dead?”

Yara took a long time to reply. She turned to watch the playing children as well. “No. Your life is yours, little brother, and you’re free to do as you will with it. Even if you want to stay in this shithole.”

* * *

It was three days after he’d shown her the tower that he noticed she’d become restless. 

Dinner was always magnificent, the crop return hearty and large with the endless summer. The meals were better than he ever had as a child here, and like most things, he wished he could share this with Sansa. She would smile in that small way she did… and then she would beam with pride for her homeland, and he would forget what important matter he’d been tasked to bring to the queen that day. 

“Theon?” Yara was watching him. He blinked and paid her his full attention. “Do you want me to stay?”

He wanted her to. He did not want to be here alone again. But he knew his sister, and he knew she would be miserable within a few moons. No sea, no travel, no company except those that hated her. No, he could not subject her to that. 

“One of us should be happy,” he eventually answered. 

“I want _you_ to be happy. I’ll make you. I’ll stay, and I’ll—“

“No, Yara. You want to explore, discover unknown lands and continents, people and creatures. You were born for it.”

“So were you,” she reminded him, feebler than her usual voice when she disagreed. 

“My future is here, taking care of my people.” He felt himself flush at the slip. 

“ _Your_ people?”

“It’s been a long time,” he rushed out. “I’ve gotten used to speaking that way.”

It surprised him that his sister did not look disgusted, or even angry; she only frowned a little, thinking, and reached forward to put her hand on his. 

“Are you a good king?”

Theon thought hard in the grey silence of Winterfell. “I don’t know.”

“Good enough,” Yara said, patting his hand. “If you’d answered yes, I would’ve dragged you out of here before you succumbed to greed like our fucking uncle.”

“What if I’d answered no? Wait— don’t answer, you would’ve dragged me out.” 

“Aye,” she laughed. “Now you understand.” 

He turned his palm so he could hold her hand. “Go. I will be alright.”

* * *

Ever since his sister visited, he felt better about ruling a kingdom that was not his. It was easy, he supposed, to rule when the wars were over… but he recognised he had done well with what little was left to him. 

He’d even quelled a rebellion, half-heartedly, he will admit, but the lords of White Hearth were cruel and cowardly. They scattered fast enough when he threatened the treasoner’s death.

It did not shock him when Jon’s letter arrived. Word of the failed coup spread beyond the North, as all news of battle did, and Theon knew it had only been a matter of time until Winterfell’s bastard found out who was ruling his home. 

He half expected the letter to open with _what the bloody, buggering fuck do you think you're doing_ , but Jon’s terse tone came through the mild words all too well. 

_It has only been two years since she was coronated,_ he wrote. _I wondered what happened to her. But the messenger… the one I send to the wall and over, he said… he told me she was dead, and I couldn’t believe him. It was not possible. I heard of Father and Robb’s death from another’s mouth and scrawl. I refused to believe it could happen again._

_The messenger came back some months later, armed with a knowledge that pierced me right through… you were king, and my sister was truly dead._

_I thought we had some sort of understanding. You were sorry for all your crimes, and I forgave you for them. But this…_

The ink was smudged, a swift line from the brush of a tensed knuckle. 

_This is sick. I don’t believe you could have killed her, not after witnessing your true regret at Dragonstone. But you held no hesitation in swooping in, did you?_

Theon could not even finish reading. Seething, he picked up his feather. 

_What did you expect me to do? You ran off, too scared to see the consequences of your own actions. You abandoned her the minute it was done, giving her no way to contact you, before that crown had even settled on her and left me to..._

Theon squeezed his eyes shut tight, willing the warm tracks on his face to disappear. Fisting the paper until it was a crumpled ball, he threw it into the fire and watched it burn. As angry as he was, he knew he did not want to hurt Jon. Even if it was all true. 

_I am king now,_ the next one read. _I have been doing the best I can to protect the lands you abandoned. Sansa had no one else. I was the one who listened to her, who helped her manage a kingdom, who wrote her more tedious letters and counted the stock, who went into Wintertown and documented the shopkeeper’s supply, who held her at night and told her she was worth more to me as a person than a queen..._

That one went into the fire too. 

* * *

In the end, he didn’t reply at all. 

He willed Jon to come and test him, to bring his wildling army and justify his swift retreat into the greater North. He _wanted_ that confrontation, when years ago he would’ve shied away from Jon’s reprimands. 

He was entirely occupied imagining the relief he would receive in telling Jon exactly how he’d been feeling all these years — he would finally be strong enough to shout, and even hit, if he wanted, throwing three punches to Jon’s every one, telling him what a shameful brother he was to leave his sister behind, without even consulting her in her own future, as Theon made sure to do with Yara before he’d left to serve as Sansa’s hand. 

He was so occupied, in fact, that the man who’d been crowing for his attention had to wave a hand in front of his face to bring him back. 

Theon jumped as the man smiled, decorated with what seemed a thousand instruments strapped to his body. They were tied with various ropes and strings, gathered from all sorts of sources. 

“And who are you, exactly?” Theon asked when he’d regained his wits. 

“Oslo, the travelling bard.” Oslo swept into a deep bow, his instruments rattling as they bumped together. 

“Travelling, you say? Where have you visited?”

“Well, the North, mostly,” he answered, bobbing his head casually, sending his long hair into fits. “I toured the South a little during the wars. No one had time nor coin for a singer when their lives were tied to invisible nooses.”

Theon weighed the intention behind that remark; was it a criticism of the past kings and queen, his stark predecessors? Or a harmless state of fact?

“No,” he agreed, deciding the latter. “But there is plenty demand for entertainment now.”

The bard smiled, bowing again. There was a distinct tint of mischief to his eyes when he raised them again, coming over to stand by Theon’s side. 

“You're going to play something?”

“I am,” the bard nodded. “With your permission?”

Theon gave a curt nod in return. The bard began strumming, inching ever closer until he was practically on top of Theon’s chair. 

“The North needs funds,” he spoke lowly, strumming and singing a verse before turning back. “The kingdom needed gold before the wars and it needs gold now.” 

“That’s what taxes are for.” 

“Marriage, too,” the bard pointed out. “A well chosen royal marriage could cement foreign alliances, boost trade and even increase military strength. With a bit of luck, all three at once.” 

Theon tangled his fingers in his hair with a rough grip that pinched; he’d heard this enough in rumours. They all hinted toward the same solution. “I won’t love her.” 

“You don’t have to,” he replied. “Find a wife that’s tolerable. Respected and wise, at best, but any highborn will do.” The answering silence was tense, but the rest of the hall was happily chatting with their meals. He played another two verses before he surmised his king would not reply. “Its politics,” he added, matter-of-fact. “I’ve seen enough of it to know.” 

“It’s mercenary, is what it is,” Theon muttered to himself, pressing his doublet down with a haughty hand. If he could do it while staying dignified, he would’ve sunk down in his chair.

“Your grace...” the bard lowered his voice even further, abandoning his song for the moment, “preferably a wife from one of the families who don’t agree with your rule.”

“So she can hate me forever, and I can torture her family with the sight of me on the throne?”

They would end up like Cersei Lannister and Robert Baratheon, trapped in deadly hate as he pined for another woman until his wife had Theon killed. No, he did not want to recast history.

Oslo blinked like he was holding back an eye roll. Louder than before, he strummed his lute so vigorously he might snap the strings, an image Theon would’ve found amusing if he wasn’t trapped in this sour grape of a conversation. 

“Not hate anymore, your grace,” the bard reasoned eventually, “not with their daughter beside you.”

It felt wrong to even think it; another queen, the second after the first. It made him sick to think she might live longer than the last, too. He turned his head to inspect his fingers, the rough lines and dry skin that run like the rings on an old tree around his knuckles. 

It was a sound plan, which meant he hated it more; that it might be a wise, even rightful thing to do. But he studied the Bard who offered such a plentiful hand. “And which wealthy Lord were you employed by?”

“ _Now_ who is speaking mercenary?”

“You started it,” Theon complained before he caught himself. “I’m only speaking the truth.”

He sighed and lowered his lute, deliberating his response. “Lord Yurick.”

“I knew it!” Theon clicked his fingers, smothering the pleased smile that threatened to break out. “He’s the only lord who still can’t stand me.” 

“But I have a better proposition, if you’ll hear it,” the bard offered. “He’s pays better, too, and his daughter loves her king as she should.” 

The faint pleasure faded, leaving the cold again — it was so very foolish to refuse it outright, yet he thought the words would stab his throat with a thousand pinpricks if he tried to agree. Did he want to be loyal to a ghost, known for inciting a coup and beheaded, a footnote in history? Or a tantamount leader, politically strong and stable?

He managed between gritted teeth. “I’ll think on it.” 

* * *

_The red light,_ he thought. _There it is again._

This time, he tried to rise and go toward it. He couldn’t remember if he’d put on his boots, but as soon as he wished it he was walking, his legs brushing rows and rows of wheat, digging into his skin and scratching his palms, and he imagined he looked, oddly, like some sort of night creature. He tried to look down, but the light would not let him look away. 

The far off field seemed not so far with the light calling to him, but he could not understand what it was saying. The voice was awfully loud, but it was speaking another language — fast paced and frantic, too quick to understand — and he walked, and walked, trudging through the field… _it has not snowed in years_ , he thought, but perhaps that was only in his own mind, where snow and joy were intertwined. 

He continued to walk until his feet ached. Certainly the hard dirt beneath was giving him blisters, but he moved toward the light like a man possessed… it flowed, out of the centre and into his heart, calling… he picked up speed, pounding the earth and tripping over the wheat. 

_When will this be over?_

_Soon,_ the light answered. 

* * *

The bard received his middling response quite seriously, as it turned out. He’d shown up with a lord and his daughter in tow just shy of three moons later, much to Theon’s utter despair.

That morning, Marco woke him up early to hand over an urgent letter. Through the years he’d begun to rely on the boy more and more, trusted him more than any of his supposed highborn secret-keepers, and now Marco had twice the courtly responsibilities he’d possessed as a simple stable boy. 

“There was a skirmish, along the western border, near white hearth,” Marco rushed out before he’d even broken the seal. 

Theon groaned as he scanned the paper. “Lord Ashbury, I presume?” Ever since his coronation, the man had been nothing but a fire starter. 

“Uh, aye, your grace. The merchants were travelling North to bring their goods when the lord stopped them with an arm of men.”

“To what end?”

“To cause disruption.” Marco tentatively pointed to one of the middle paragraphs. “The merchant describes the lord revealing a detailed dislike of you, and his intention to cause as much trouble as possible.” 

Scowling, Theon hurried to dress, Marco matching his master’s faster pace. 

* * *

As soon as Theon was done reading, he crumpled the letter with a dismissive grace, looking each member of the enraptured crowd in the eye. 

“Do you hear this, friends? What this lord seeks? He forgets, I think, who has come before me.” He rapped his fingernails on the wood of his chair. “I cannot help it if he does not like me, at least, I cannot blame him. But he has done enough damage. I will write to him, and bid him cease this petty game. If not…” he spoke quieter, almost to himself, “I have done worse, and in the name of worse.”

In all of the commotion this morning, he’d forgotten Oslo’s reminder that he was coming along with his employer and eligible daughter. The awaiting girl blanched a little, contrasting her dark hair against a very pale face, and he regretted implying so bluntly of violence. Theon had no intention of ruining any child’s innocence, least of all because his was so thoroughly shredded. 

“I apologise, my lady. My lord...” he waved once. “Tell me how I can help.” 

“It is not so much what help you can offer _us_ , but the help we can offer _you_.” 

Theon kept his face neutral. “How is this?”

He supposed he had learned to rule from the people around him, from his torture and his suffering, his starvation and affection, to the love and hate he had seen and felt... Theon learned all his lessons diligently, and the maester had no reason to rap his knuckles when he was done. 

The lord, who Oslo had nicknamed _Penny Pincher_ in his letter, neither disheartened or encouraged, began to speak his piece. “A king sees many benefits from taking a wife.” 

Theon gave a grunt. “I am aware.”

The father practically pushed the girl towards him, making her trip over her own feet. “My daughter, Lavetta, is a fine woman.”

“Your grace,” she chirped. She seemed old enough to quell the impending sickness in his stomach, but the fear in her eyes made it boil up. She could barely keep her knees from clacking together. 

“Good morning, my lady. How was your travel here?”

Lavetta looked blank-faced for a moment before her father nudged her back. “Very well, your grace,” she answered politely. “I like Winterfell.”

“I’m glad.” Truth be told, he only began to enjoy the place with Sansa in it, having spent many years resenting the same stone walls and endless layers of snow. “My bard Oslo brought you here?”

“He did, your grace.”

“He said we’d been invited,” the father added. Theon swallowed the annoyance of that revelation for a later date, when he could strangle the bard in peace. He noticed Oslo wisely made himself scarce. 

“Yes, assuredly. Do make yourselves welcome.” Theon smiled passively to make them leave, but they both stood still, expectant. “My lady.” He eyed the girl’s eager father and sighed. “Would you take a turn with me in the godswood?”

While the girl’s smile was watery, her father grinned. 

* * *

The conversation was paper-thin, if not pleasant; Theon enjoyed the walk and fresh air more, if he was honest. 

“And your family?” he asked, after he’d given her the clean version of his own. 

Lavetta shrugged, shifting the modestly chosen grey of her dress. “They all think you’re a good king.”

“Do _you_ think I am a good king? Don’t be afraid to tell the truth, I won’t hurt you.”

The girl’s lips twisted as she concentrated. “I suppose so. There is plenty to eat, and none in my home have died from the cold.” 

“Those are the standards to measure me against, are they? They’re not much of a challenge.”

“Most kings couldn’t meet them,” she pointed out. “Think of all the kings of winter. People starved and froze when they ruled, as great as we claim them to be.”

 _Brave,_ he thought praisingly, _to say something like that. Kings of Winter…_ Theon felt his heart thud hard against his chest. “We have had one queen.”

“That’s true, Queen Sansa.” Lavetta watched him, keeping pace easily with his stride. He never could walk as fast as before. “You were never married, were you?”

“No.” Theon swallowed involuntarily, fighting back the burn in his eyes. He thought about her often, of course he did, but it was a shock to be reminded other people had known her too… it had been so long since anyone else spoke her name aloud.

It was odd, his reactions; sometimes he could bear it, to say and think _Sansa,_ as natural as _Robb_ , and what felt like two score ghosts at his back; other times it felt like he was taking another arrow in his chest, matching to the one he’d gotten during the Battle of Winterfell. 

“Forgive me, your grace,” the girl said hurriedly, more perceptive than she seemed. “I—“

“Please don’t, you’ve not upset me. I only… I would like to go back inside soon.”

The girl started to look frightened again. “My father—“

“I’ll tell him you made quite an impression on me. I’ll send him away thinking a proposal is imminent.”

The girl’s breath caught. “Is it?”

Theon could’ve smacked himself. Time, it seems, drained all the charm and tact from his boyhood. “No,” he told her gently. He even took her hand, though the soft, babe-like skin almost had her covered in her king’s breakfast. “No, my lady. I can never marry.”

He watched as a war went on inside her head. Was she going to be a good little girl like her father taught her, or was curiosity going to win out? Theon wished very much for someone to treat him like a human again, and children always excelled in that area.

“Why?”

He smiled, even though it was odd to do so. “Because I loved Queen Sansa.”

The girl turned that over in her mind. “My father said… he told me all kings must have heirs.”

“I don’t want them,” he countered. It was easier than the truth. “If I wanted them, it would’ve been with her.” 

“So who is going to be king when…”

“I don’t know. I’ll name someone suitable when the time comes.”

Frowning, the girl followed as he began walking again. “Queen Sansa was married before, wasn’t she?”

Theon’s steps faltered only for a moment. “She was. Twice.”

“And you still would’ve married her?”

“Yes, happily.” He paused, comfortable in the silence, but he noticed the girl was still frowning. “Why, do you think that odd?”

“It is only… my father told me that no man likes spoiled goods.” 

Theon wondered if he’d eaten something rotten this morning, since he’d felt the urge to vomit no less than a dozen times today. “You’ll have to forgive your king for speaking ill of your father, my lady, but he is a fool.” 

Lavetta giggled, perhaps the only sincere sound he’d heard from her since they had been introduced. “My mother says that too.”

“She’s right,” Theon agreed. “Mothers always are.”

The girl bit her lip. “My father also forced me to come here today.”

“Aye, I know. You seemed terrified in the hall.” 

“Oh… I thought I’d hidden it better than that.”

He chuckled lightly. “I am no expert in the game, but anyone could tell you did not want to be there.”

They came to the godswood, a place Theon increasingly found solace in these last years, even when he’d only resented it as a prisoner here. The girl let him be, sensing his need for quiet, as he walked without her to the base of the tree, kneeling parallel to it’s red face. 

He never prayed when he came. It was never about that. The old gods were not his gods, but then again, even _his_ god wasn’t his god, not after what he’d seen and experienced. He came, humbly, to talk to her. 

“I hope you are well,” he began. He also hoped the girl waiting on the bench at the entrance of the godswood could not hear him, but he spoke low just in case. These words were not for her ears, only for the two of them. “This is the second forced courtship this month,” he cocked his head back, “and still I am no better at wooing. Though I am not _really_ trying… but you already know that.” 

“Are you well, your grace?” the girl called. 

“Aye, very well,” he replied in some annoyance, glancing at her and turning back to the tree. “You see, Sansa? These are girls, children, thrown to the slaughter by fathers who claim to love them.” 

He knew exactly what she would say. Something along the lines of agreement, perhaps she would even tell him of her own experience, if she was feeling lighter than usual. 

This day was bursting in it’s show of summer, the leaves coating the ground red and yellow, every colour in between. He recalled the two of them sitting with their legs crossed, naming the shades all sorts of silly names, indulging their every whim: _porridge, hay, a lady’s fair hair._ Theon held up one leaf particularly deep in it’s red hue, pressing it against her hair, telling her that the yellow she proclaimed to be a lady’s shade was no match for this one, for hers. 

“I know this is not you… and yet I must say that I love you, as I have every visit. I wish I had possessed the courage to do it when you were here, but how do you tell someone they are part of you?” He chuckled wetly to cover the aching in his chest. “I suppose like that.” 

He wished her farewell, kissed his fingers and put them on the godswood, to the side of the weeping face. 

Lavetta wasted no time once he returned to her side. “Father will expect a proposal, you know. He’ll pace and wait at home, glaring at every raven that doesn’t carry your seal.”

Theon sighed, tired and exhausted, but only in his heart. “I’ll try to pull the wool over his eyes somehow. Don’t fret over it. Better yet, when you’re older, make sure you marry for love. Ignore your father.” 

The girl looked doubtful. He could understand; it was not easy to be told the man you looked up to for everything was as fallible as you were. 

He brought them back around to the castle, grateful to have done the barest duty in pleasing the girl’s father. It wasn’t what he wanted to do as a man, but he must stomach it as a ruler. 

“You have a fine daughter,” Theon told him. The father was still grinning, pulling her into a hug. 

“You like her, your grace?”

The girl watched him steadily. 

“I like her, my lord.” He rapped his foot against the stone ground, anticipating the argument to come. “When she is older, perhaps.”

The lord blinked. “She is already five and ten…”

“Aye… but…” he cursed inwardly. He wondered if Jon ever had to fend off daughters being catapulted at him. “But…”

“He doesn’t want heirs,” Lavetta tried to help.

Now her father looked utterly bewildered. “What?”

Kneading his forehead roughly with his hand, Theon tried his best to keep his composure. “I have other things to spend resources on.”

The lord spluttered for a moment before finding his voice. “Your… grace…”

“I’m not going to force your daughter to marry me, and neither should you.”

“But she wants to!”

“Open your eyes and look at her! She’s a child, for the love of…” Theon felt sick again. He thought of Sansa, hair pulled so tight against her scalp it hurt, donned in that white fur cloak, among the snow and the light of his lantern. “Leave me.” 

They did, and he ignored the affronted look on the lord’s face and enjoyed the girl’s happy one. Even though she was practically being dragged away she was smiling, free at last. He knew that feeling well, and he hoped he had not set her free to see her fall into a second trap in time. The North has many lord’s sons to match their daughters, doubtless… he could do little about that. He wished her luck in finding love. 

* * *

Marco gave a rough tug to the laces and almost pitched Theon backwards with him. “Careful,” he managed to grunt, saving himself from falling on his back in front of his servant. If that happened he would wish he’d died instead of having to face the embarrassment. 

“Forgive me, your grace,” Marco said, pulling the cuffs of his sleeves with less force. “It is just…”

He did not have to say it, they’d both noticed; Theon had gained weight, enough that he no longer looked on the brink of starvation anymore. He could feel his arms without skimming bone, and the shirts that fit perfectly before were starting to chafe. “I’ll send for some new clothes soon.”

Marco frowned, but said nothing. That meant, in no uncertain times, that the boy did not believe him, knowing Theon would much rather spend the gold on something more worthwhile. But this time he would, if only to suspend the inevitable ungainly fall in front of Marco. 

They continued in silence as with most other nights, but Theon felt of a lighter spirit this evening. “Have you ever been in love, Marco?’

“No, your grace,” he replied, wiggling his undershirt off and folding it impeccably, well practiced in the routine. 

“I would not recommend it.” He knew, deep down, that he felt the opposite. But young men and boys could never find what he found in love, not without the suffering he endured to balance it, to make it seem more than perhaps it was. “Do you remember Queen Sansa?”

“... I am ten and six, your grace.”

“Of course.” He thought of the girl earlier today, the way she knew Sansa’s name without prompting. “I… I dread the day I do not remember. One day there will be men and women here who do not know her… how will I stand it, Marco?”

“With courage, your grace.” He handed him a glass. 

“Wine?”

“Water, your grace.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Bring me wine.” 

Marco frowned a little but did as he was bid, pouring from the pitcher into another goblet and handing it over. 

“Better,” Theon said, licking the excess off his lips. “Do I drink too much?”

“It’s not my place to say, your grace.”

As earlier, he knew his servant well — that meant yes, but he was too polite to say. Suddenly taken with memories of Robert Baratheon, rowdy and consumed by a raging fire in and out of his cups, Theon put the goblet down. 

Marco fiddled with the handle of the pitcher he’d put down, hesitant to speak.

“I remember she came past the stables on her way to the kennels many times…”

“What?”

“Queen Sansa,” Marco prompted. “You asked me if I remembered her. I do, and more closely than most. I saw her worry over you as she strode to rescue you from the hay. She even stopped me, once, and asked if you spoke to me.” 

Theon’s heart was in his throat. He tightly clung to his own memories, but they were withered at the seams from use, from the way he would replay them over and over. Another’s memories opened a whole new world… new things for him to know about her, even so long lost. 

“Tell me something else.”

Marco concentrated. “I remember the way she could never look away from you, even in the hall when the smallfolk were talking. My father thought it was awful of her, but I thought it was amusing.” 

Theon laughed, a genuine one, the act of reminiscing shedding the pounds piled upon his chest. “I did not think anyone else noticed.”

“She was very plain about it. So were you.” 

“I never… I don’t think I ever told her that I loved her, you know. She did not need to hear the words to know the truth anymore than I did, but still… it would have been nice to look back on it.” 

Marco folded his coat and placed it in the chest. “Why did you never marry?”

“I didn’t want to be king,” Theon answered, and shared a sudden laugh with Marco at the irony. “Yes, I know. Hindsight makes fools of us all. That and… I was very scared. Of many things, most of all myself. Throughout my life I consistently hurtled every good thing I had into the sea, and I was terrified I would do it again.”

“Oh,” Marco said, agreeing but not truly understanding. _He is young_ , Theon thought, almost envious. “Did she want to?”

“I don’t know,” Theon answered after a moment. “I think so. I _hope_ so.”

He did not know what she had thought of him upon waking alone, that final morning. Running was his most masterful skill, and he had done it then, and many times before, but that night was a special one, for it was the last he would ever spend with her. 

“That girl today…” Marco started. “She will not be the only one. You are still young, your grace, and eligible by a thick margin, even if only to take a consort than a full queen.” 

He set his jaw grimly. “I’ll never do it. I can’t. Even if I wanted to, which I do not, and even feel ill at the thought… but even if I wanted to, I can’t assure a bloodline.” 

Marco did not know for certain — Theon never told him — but he picked things up throughout his service. Theon supposed it was hard to ignore. For one, the boy never had to clean up the aftermath of a lustful night in his chambers, not once in two years, and his abstinence still confounded most of the household. He even enjoyed some of the more outrageous rumours to explain it.

“There are plenty of orphaned Northern children,” Marco offered. 

“Precisely what I said. But that girl today was too deep in her father’s mind, no assurance of her own self worth than to court a husband.” 

Marco glanced at him in the mirror. “You don’t want a wife?”

“I don’t need a wife.”

“That is different from wanting one.”

“Yes, I want one.” A cave opened in his chest. “But that is it’s own answer. I want _one._ Every day I… sometimes I dream of her and she is alive again, but it never feels long enough even within the dream. I know I am losing time, losing a fight I know not of when I hold her. I wonder if it is better I did not dream of her at all.” 

“I know you would be sorry for it,” Marco replied, cutting to the truth startlingly quick. “When you first made me your servant you were in despair, mourning far deeper than the rest of us. You didn’t touch the crown for weeks except for that first day.”

Theon hesitated. “What if I told you I only accepted it out of love for her?”

“I would not be surprised. Do you still feel that way?”

“I don’t. Is that awful? I’ve come to care for this place for more than I ever thought I would. I even wept at a letter that called me evil for taking after her.”

“What letter, your grace?”

Theon opened his mouth but no sound sprung. He was frightened, he realised, of Marco supporting Jon over himself. Snow harboured the better claim, there could be no doubt about that. But even if he stayed in his self imposed exile there would still be people willing to shed blood for him. Absent, and still a Stark where he was not. 

“From Jon Snow, where he lives beyond the wall. Which is… not a wall any longer, I suppose.”

Marco seemed to be concentrating on his work, but he paid enough attention to his servant’s mannerisms to know he was turning this over. “Is he envious, do you think?”

“Of me?” Theon could not hold in his surprise. 

“Of you, aye, and the crown.”

He scoffed. “Jon would sooner enjoy needlework than lust for a crown. He hated it, best I knew.”

“Perhaps it is a more appealing position with the wars done.”

“No, Marco. You do not know him like I do. We grew up…” he was about to say _together_ , but that wasn’t true. Not like he and Robb. “... in the same place. I think he resents that it is me here instead of another, not that he resents me over him.” 

“Who would he prefer here?”

“A Stark.”

“But there are none—”

“Aye, I know,” he sighed. “No one has ever said men are rational, have they? Jon prefers ghosts over me.” He was starting to recognise his own tone, hurt and boyish, and resolved to shut his mouth. “Enough for tonight.”

“Very good, your grace. Shall I bring the oil tonight for your joints? Do you need help?”

“No oil, they feel better tonight.” Theon looked to the crown beside the mirror, waiting for tomorrow’s dawn. “I need no help.”

* * *

A long time ago, he remembered imagining Sansa’s crown feeling like it belonged on his head, what a strange day that would be, if it would ever come at all. 

In the night, he would consider ordering his own, one to mark himself in history and give Sansa her own back, down in the chests under his bed where he kept her things. 

But it seemed ghoulish to pack her legacy away. She’d given it to him, passed along like he was family by blood, trained him in ruling and running a kingdom. Sansa never married, and he wondered if that was on purpose, if he was the only one she trusted to take after her. 

He could never know. He kept her crown close to him, abandoning the thought of creating his own, finding a new and hesitant pride when he placed it in his hair. 

* * *

“You’re frowning, Marco.” Theon blinked a little blearily, adjusting to the morning. “You only frown like that when there is news.” 

“Aye,” Marco said, drawing back the last curtain. “A slander has been spread by Lord Ashbury.”

Groaning, Theon stumbled out of bed. “What has the old man coughed up this time?” 

“He calls you, well, your grace… a _Greyjoy_ , who bears himself for the king.”

Theon scoffed harshly; the sound hurt as it ripped out of his mouth. “Gods.”

“Only some are repeating it, your grace,” Marco added quickly, half feared. “Most others approve.”

He was reluctant to make something of that. Indeed, in the year between Sansa’s coronation and death, Theon spent most of his time placating the nobles. They would come to ruminate with him over her puzzling, feminine ways, the plans and designs of an apparent madwoman, which he had half a mind to punch out of them. 

Whatever his method, he had the opportunity to understand them well; how they worked, what they hated, and how to slick the path for treaties and policies that chafed. Unwittingly — or perhaps not — Sansa trained him startlingly well. 

As when any news reached his ears, he repeated it to the people gathered in his hall. When he was done, he remarked, “I bear myself a king as any king does, I am no exception to that. What should a man call himself that wears a crown? A sheep farmer?”

A murmur of agreement rose in the crowd, including a few light chuckles.

“This lord threatens our hard won peace. Will we let this stand?”

His chest swelling, Theon surveyed the agreeing crowd feeling, for the first time, wholly proud of his people, fully a part of something, as he always wanted, and most of all that he could succeed. With the people on his side, this lord did not stand a chance. 

As with the rest of his life, it followed suit that he would begin to feel settled just before his world turned upside down.

Marco came charging into the hall wide-eyed, scared half to death by something out there. The crowd was barely quieted before he rushed to speak. 

“A visitor, your grace,” he wheezed. “For you.” 

* * *

Theon felt so strongly that he should rip the crown off his head and throw it into the mud. 

She knew he was an imposter trussed up in fine cloaks with a voided skeleton beneath… she, better than any man or woman here, knew what he had been and saw what he pretended now. 

His hair may be shorter and face fuller, but he was the same frightened man who had come to Winterfell to fight the dead.

“Why are you here?”

Wrapped in a dark cloak and leaping out against the white of Winterfell, the red woman blinked and pursed her lips, almost sympathetically. 

“I’m here for that queen of yours,” she purred. “She wasn’t meant to die.”

PART THREE

_There is no creature loves me_

He couldn’t look. He knew he must, but he couldn’t; he was already weeping, and he’d be adding expelling the contents of his stomach to it if he turned around. 

“You can’t even look at a body?” 

The red woman’s voice was harder than it was when she arrived. Like water in the winter, the longer she’d spent here the more she froze over; there was a _clink,_ like poking at ice, as she set down her shovel. The one in his own hands trembled. 

“Not hers.” 

He did not need to check to know she was studying him. Whether that was with curiosity or disdain he did not know, but he could feel her stare warm his back. 

“Has she been embalmed?”

“Yes,” he choked. “But it’s been _years_ —”

“The Lord of Light has kept her. She looks just the same, you may turn around.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. There were so many voices telling him what a terrible, awful idea this was, what an awful idea it was to let the priestess into Sansa’s home in the first place. But he was desperate. Foolish for it, he knew, but he’d done worse in the name of other pursuits. 

Theon remembered hearing it whispered the red woman died after the battle with the dead, but here she was; he wondered, briefly, if her god had brought her back, as skeptical a man as he had grown to be. Regardless, they all agreed Sansa should not be dead, for any destiny in any universe.

Turning, he took a deep breath that stuck in his throat as she filled his view. 

He’d seen her pale, sick, trapped and tortured. It looked nothing like this. She was the colour of death; unearthly, white as snow, ghastly and ghostly. The only thing recognisable was her red hair, pulled back and stuck to her scalp, and the clothes they’d buried her in, and his heart jolted as he recognised the garment. Her coronation dress, dusty and faded away, stitched tight as if it clung to her ever shrinking flesh. 

He pressed a hand over his mouth so hard it hurt. He held back a gag. 

“For a man who has seen and caused many deaths, you are strangely sensitive to seeing the consequences,” the red woman remarked in that lyrical tone. 

_This wasn’t my fault,_ he wanted to shout, but didn’t. Hadn’t he thought the very same himself? 

Even if it wasn’t — like she’d said. Many deaths. Ser Rodrick, a thousand northmen, ironborn and most of all those farmboys, as innocent as Sansa in their death. 

This time he could not hold it back, and he whipped back and bent over. He heaved until his stomach hurt, until he felt like curling up in the corner of the crypts and rotting there, with Robb and Ned and Sansa, as undeserving as he was to rest with them. 

The priestess gave him a moment before she spoke again, oddly sensitive to his distress. “Help me move her.” 

Theon braced his head against his arm, bent over like a hunchbacked beast. He didn’t think he could do it. But there seemed to be something inside him that allowed him to do brave things sometimes, a bottomless reserve past the cup of his courage, and it was not like he had much of a choice; it was either this or put her back and pretend the priestess never came. 

He could not do that. It would haunt him for the rest of his life — the possibility he’d turned his nose up at, his lover in another life beneath the ground as he slept, knowing she might’ve come back to him… 

He took a long, deep breath, echoing until it sounded like thunder around the crypts. Moving Sansa was easy. She was light, and they placed her on the outer side of her stone coffin lid. The priestess got to work wordlessly. 

Theon watched, but not the red woman, only at that face he’d grown to know so well. Once, he’d told her he could look forever, curled under their furs and skin pressed together. Her face was so different from the one he’d known as a child — sleek cheekbones and tight skin, the babe fat gone, but it was a face he had come to treasure more than the one he knew. 

Once she was finished she rose to half mast, still on her knees beside Sansa, and Theon took a few ragged breaths before he couldn’t take it any longer. 

“Nothing is happening.” 

“It was this way with Jon Snow,” the priestess said. “Hold your fears. It takes a while for them to wake.”

Theon’s eyes bugged. Jon _died?_

The red woman looked faintly amused at the look on his face. “Like brother, like sister,” she remarked. 

“How long is a while?” Theon felt he might be sick again. 

“A least an hour. We waited half that before giving up on Snow.”

That was too vague an answer for Theon, but he was not about to question the woman who was giving him back his life’s purpose. He shoved a hand under his chin, feeling it tremble, and stared at Sansa’s body so hard he might bring her back to life through force of will. 

* * *

“Tell me about her, if it’ll pass the time.” The priestess glanced up, seemingly taking pity on him, on the way he stood despondent and lost, flanked by so many endlessly long black tunnels. 

Theon hesitated, for he’d never been a private person before; as a boy he never stopped bragging of the women he’d bedded, to the point where Lady Catelyn started clapping her hands over her daughter’s ears before he even opened his mouth. It felt unexplainable, what he shared with Sansa. It made perfect sense to them, but to describe it to someone else? 

They were not lovers, but he refused the sexual bribes and women offered to him during his time as hand, and he was sure Sansa denied all proposals, economically or politically savvy in the long run, for the comforts of being held at night, by a friend if not a lover, in every sense of the word but one. 

Perhaps he would seem mad. 

“I don’t presume to know how you feel of your god…” he began, “but I know what I feel of mine.” 

“Even gods can die,” the priestess reminded him. She raised a slender, unimpressed eyebrow, and he thought she expected him to compare Sansa to a god, as all false poets and wooers did. Gods knows he’d heard a dozen terrible verses from Oslo that did so. 

“I hate him,” Theon corrected her. “He’s selfish and cruel, merciless and blind to the world’s plagues. He turns his back and ignores all cries for his help.” Theon thought of every time he’d gone to the godswood just to hear the whisper of her voice, even if it was only the wind. “People in this realm believe in their gods simply because they want someone to stand by them, shoulder to shoulder, a companion in battle. The best choice I’d ever made was to trade my god for Sansa, who has done more for me than he ever has.” 

He was right — he _did_ seem mad, even to his own ears. But the priestess looked thoughtful, taken aback for the first time since she’d dismounted her horse in Winterfell’s courtyard. 

“I can understand that,” she replied, quiet as she was not before. “You miss her.”

“You don’t need a sorceress’ prophecy to know that.”

Melisandre wasn’t cowed; she continued to stare him down. It seemed like she almost enjoyed unsettling him. “Very well, Lord Greyjoy. Let me try another. You regret coming back.”

“Stop.” It held no heat, instead coming out like the last puff of a dying soldier. “Please.” 

He closed his eyes because he didn’t want to see anymore; to meet her eyes and accept the knowing in them. She knew things she could never possibly know, unless she possessed powers like Bran did... or her god was real. 

“If it is any comfort, it would not have made a difference.” Melisandre paused until he looked back at her again. “The assassin was not aiming for you.” 

Theon hoped he had been, so he could blame himself for yet another failure, another wrong choice.

The man who stuck a knife into Sansa Stark was not from the North, nor the South, nor this continent at all. The sloppily concealed ring around his eyes from years of black paint, the self imposed brevity, the unwavering stare. It was obvious who the assassin had answered to. 

The woman the commonfolk called the dragon queen may have been dead, but her spirit lived on, in his sister’s silent loyalty and Sansa’s shortened reign. 

“Aye,” he answered, solemn, his lips pulled into a grim line. “I know.”

* * *

“How long now?”

The priestess fiddled with her hands. “I don’t know.”

Releasing his tightly coiled hand from under his chin, he began to pace. “Is it taking too long? How long did Jon take?”

“I don’t—“

“Don’t tell me you don’t know!” he cut her off. _It is taking too long,_ a voice inside him said, kneeling to fear. “You were the one that demanded this, came here and dug up her body.” His own body felt like it was rattling, an unparalleled energy and anger growing in him. “Why now? Why have you waited two _years?_ I have cried, mourned, executed her killer and put her to peace — _why_ did you wait so long?”

“The lord…” she looked a smite guilty, averting her eyes from his glowering stare. “I can not know the ways of my lord. I am sent when the time is right, when—“

He scoffed thickly, digging his fingernails into his palms. “The time was right the night she died, when I was an inch away from tossing myself out of her window.” 

She flinched. “I’m sorry.” The words came out strange on her tongue, like she was unfamiliar with them. 

Ignoring the priestess, he crumpled beside Sansa’s body, folding himself over her. Burying his head against her neck, he stilled at feeling her so cold, but he would take any comfort he could get. 

There were a hundred times she reached out that he reared back, hurting her and himself in the process, the fear of being found out, chased out by a mob of angry Northerners, by the ghosts of his past, by Sansa herself when she found him inadequate. Those were the fears of a boy. 

_Come back to me,_ he prayed. _This time I will give you my heart._ It was no kidnapping — he’d give it willingly, if it wasn’t already here, sleeping beneath the ground with her. 

His hands were slow as they wrapped around her, tucking her head under his arm, and he rose to watch her. It would be scary enough, he imagined, to awake from any kind of death, but especially in these solemn crypts. He could only hope a familiar face would comfort her. 

He did not realise he was weeping again until a droplet landed on her face. He had not cried this much before. Even as Reek, he opted to feel nothing; it was easier, living by not living at all. _I will give you my heart. I have one, I feel it. I know it’s there._

“It’s not fair,” he managed, speaking to the priestess with his back turned. “I have suffered all these years without her.” 

She did not grace that with a reply. In sudden fury he turned, and found no face to glare at. “Priestess?” He searched the endless rows of stone and dirt, black and empty. “Melisandre?” 

A great gasp echoed.

* * *

Sansa traced the stone with an apathetic gentleness. He watched, frightful, confused, hurt, if he admitted it; she did not cradle him back, face stony to his desperate weeping when she awakened. Now, she was staring at Benjen Stark’s grave, pressing a finger into the words beneath his statue. 

“You remember them?” 

She nodded, still mute. On and on, she made her way across to each statue, steps slow and plodding like a baby foul, and he found himself ready to shoot out his arms if she dropped. 

He didn’t know if she wanted him to follow her, but he would not be able to do anything else if he tried. All the lonely days, months and years without her… too quiet a reunion than the one he dreamed. 

He watched the muted candlelight darken her red hair, the shadows play across her pale face. In another time, he would find it frightening… and if he was honest, her unsettling stiffness set him on edge. 

“What do you not remember?” he asked, in step beside her. 

Finally, she glanced at him, the first since she had awoken, such a quick look he felt almost spurned. “How would I know what I don’t know?”

He was such a fool. How he ever thought… coming back from the _dead,_ of all things, and he gave no mind to her own state… was she happy there, and distraught to return? 

The red woman galloped into Winterfell and demanded to see Sansa’s body, with no consideration to the consequences. He was not blameless, either; he’d aided her quest, and dragged Sansa back for his own selfishness… 

“Your father, there,” he said softly, careful not to frighten her. She had already seen him, eyes on the grey stone high above her own. 

She did not speak for a long while, that he was getting accustomed to, and he turned behind him to seek Melisandre, but he remembered she was gone. Disappeared into the air. There was no one to help but himself. 

“He’s dead,” she said gravely, half a question.

“Aye.”

“My brother, too.” She turned her head efficiently to the stone by Ned’s side, Robb with his beloved Greywind. Theon felt a punch reverberate in his chest. 

“Aye.”

“How many?”

He took a moment. “Five, counting your uncle, Benjen.” 

It was only a flicker, like a candle alight and blown out within a second’s notice, but he saw her face soften. Pain, twisting her features, the punch to his own following the expression. It was something, however, proof that she could still feel, and for that he was bittersweetly thankful. 

“There are some alive,” she said, frowning. “Not all dead.”

“Jon, Arya, and Bran.” 

“My brother beyond the wall.” He was glad to hear familiar affection colour her tone. 

“He returned. But… he is back there again.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Sansa accepted this with another frown. “And Arya?”

“Off on her ship.”

“Doing what?”

“I’m not sure,” he answered. “Being scary as usual, I would imagine.” 

The Sansa he knew would huff at him, perhaps smile. She was always proud when he made a good jest, and amused when he made a bad one. But she only blinked, not a pause in her stony stride. “Where is Joffrey?”

His gasp stuck in his mouth, choking him. “He is long dead, Sansa.” Theon took in the lowered eyes, the serious brow. Fear. “You are safe. I promise.” 

“How — “ she stopped, the clarity of memories washing over her. It was only a few seconds but he watched an entire lifetime flit through her face, and he hated that he was so powerless against such an untouchable foe. 

Most of all, fear bubbled up in his chest as she looked at him anew. _Did she remember? Did she hate him?_

Theon was almost prepared to step back, to open a space between them but Sansa got there first, grabbing his arm so fast it made him jump. She looked stupefied, pale and tired but _alive_ , and she proved it through her warm grip. 

“Theon…” she licked her lips, cracked and dried. He braced himself. “I want to sleep.”

* * *

He slept beside her, an inch away from touching, though she neither screamed nor reprimanded him when she woke up. 

Keeping some kind of half vigil, he did not sleep more than a few hours, at most; too mad with the sight of her, eyes closed and hair flitting as her breath moved it. He thought of all the songs, the endless love stories, quests and rescues and far off tragedies, of his own failings and the moment she breathed her last in his arms…

Theon thought of it all, laying there looking upon her, too terrified to close his eyes and find her gone in the morning. He considered rising and retrieving his treasured lock of her hair, to compare it to the soft strands he was holding, but his body would not move from her side. Pure belief would pull him through, the proof his own senses, the way she smelled the same and felt the same, even spoke the same, despite the worrying dullness. 

He was even woken on the edge of sleep by Sansa herself, but he didn’t have the courage to open his eyes and see what she was doing. Her hands roamed the way his did, into his hair and curved around his face, a series of affectionate gestures that made his poor, weak heart stammer. Never saying a word, she buried closer, like she wanted to breathe the same air, an inch away from pressing her lips somewhere on him. 

_I will give you my heart,_ he remembered. He was too cowardly to say it just then. 

The servants frowned when he requested food in his bed the following morning, _just this once,_ but followed their lord. When he returned with the tray, Sansa was staring out of the open window, her hastily retrieved dress flitting a little from the light breeze. Her coronation dress was stuffed in a crevice of his chamber. 

“No!” He dropped the tray unceremoniously onto the table, rushing to close the window pane. “Sansa, you mustn’t, they’ll see you!” 

“Who?”

“The people!”

“Why does that matter?”

“If they suspect I have been hiding you…” His eyebrows rose. 

“But you have been,” she said plainly, worryingly calm. 

“Only for a night. It is hardly the crime they will think it is.”

She watched him. “Why do you keep me here?”

He sagged against the seat opposite, rubbing a hand over his face. “The last thing I want to do is to trap you, Sansa, but…” It shamed him to admit, it was not only the political consequences he was shielding her from. 

She was his, simply, only, in this room. When she was queen she was shared, as much as he knew it was awful of him to think so. Alone in this room, she was only Sansa, the woman he loved. 

Sansa was still watching him, eyes roaming over his face with ferocity. “You did not sleep.” 

“I did,” he argued. “A little.”

Curiously, almost like it was foreign to her, she reached out and traced under his eye, from corner to corner. The touch was warm compared to the cold in the air. 

“In winter, we must protect ourselves…” Sansa drew another finger to join the first, stilling on his cheek. 

“Look after one another,” he finished, barely able to keep steady. 

There was a small smile at her lips at the recital, but it faded away. “Has it been years for you, Theon?”

“Aye, years.” He paused, and it sunk in what he confirmed, like a long, slow anchor. “I am king now. In your absence.” It felt like a hundred years or more… he would be but five and twenty, guessing; maybe he stayed three and twenty through the red woman’s magic. 

“King,” she said, rolling it around on her tongue. “King, of course, it follows sense. Jon is… and Arya too…” 

“Most of the houses created great complaints,” he muttered. “Arrogant sons and wealthy fathers…”

“What happened?”

“They all believed the throne was theirs. I asked them how they planned to marry you to get it.” He winced recalling the plethora of shouting matches. “I will need to write to Jon and tell him you have returned, I think he’s planning to come down here and _kick_ me off the throne.” 

The fingers dropped from his face, leaving an endless winter in their wake. He thought he should say something more, knew he should, yet he knew not what. “I’m… sorry. The smallfolk had attached themselves. I tried to tell them they were acting ignorantly — I did, Sansa, I did —” he begged her with his eyes, “but they would not hear me.”

“It is expected,” she said, giving a swift nod to soothe his worries. “You were my hand for a long time. You knew what it took to rule.”

If he were a more suspicious man, the pause would concern him. As it was, he could no more begrudge her faults than his own, and even so, was resolute to forgive any and all sins that would part from her, in voice and action both. 

_More you the fool_ , his long-dead master crooned, but Theon cast him aside easily and swiftly. “You were teaching me. All that time, that entire year, you were teaching me how to rule if anything happened to you.”

This time, the slightest of smiles graced her face, a sight that made him want to weep after all this time. “You finally noticed, did you?”

* * *

He managed to hide her for a few days, begging off his duties with illness. 

There had been trying to go about his work — but it was unbearable, knowing she only rooms away. The Sansa he dreamed about, wished for, yelled at a possible messenger of a god for — she was _there_ , physically, able to be touched and talked to — he could not sit down and concentrate for a moment with that knowledge. 

He had even managed to make her laugh later in the first day, a winded, breathless sort of thing, like a bird in flight. When she was a child she loved dressing up, and endeavoured to teach the boys to do the same when they played their mighty warriors. _A fine hat and doublet will charm any lady,_ she would say, humming to herself as she forced another horrific tunic onto Robb.

He showed her his new collection, the ones he’d bought to fit his healthy stature, clothes worthy of a king in abundance. 

A fine hat, _Sansa, see?_ He thrust a carefree hand at the mountain of fabrics. _And a thousand doublets to match._

This was what had made her laugh, and he’d been recalling the sound all day, most especially when he was away from her. He tried to keep those moments short. He waved off inquiries into his health, denied aids and calls for the maester, none of it irritating when he had _Sansa_ to turn back to. 

Hiding her from Marco was hardest of all. A sudden change in his routine was a suspicion already, and add to that his changing demeanour and his loyal servant was raising one too many eyebrows.

He knew Marco did not gossip himself, only listened, and trusted him to bring any queries to Theon before spreading dissent. But it was hard, very hard, to close that door on him and trust he would not speak. 

If he was honest with himself, he couldn’t care less what they all thought, what they gossip and rumoured about. If he’d fallen deathly ill or shut himself away. They could talk until their mouths ran dry, because he had the best company of all. 

* * *

Sansa looked rather muted — even shrewd — as she pierced and weaved through the fabric enclosed in her hoop. It made him wonder not for the first time this week what she was thinking, what singular feelings hid behind her pleasant features. 

He wondered if she still felt, as she used to, before she went away. He wondered… and hoped for more reasons than one. 

Her slender fingers were working with ultimate precision, her brows — charmingly poised above her finely sculpted nose, a nose so fine and straight it could have been carved from marble — were knit slightly together as if deep in concentration.

“You’re staring.”

“Am I?” he mused, not looking away.

She offered a smile, which he took greedily. “Any other woman would be unsettled.”

“But not you.”

A fingertip traced after the lines of her design: flowers and feathers. “Not much can frighten me anymore.” 

The birds chirped outside the window, and a cool breeze made him break out in goose-pimples. That, or the way Sansa crossed her legs in just that way. Never one to believe herself wanton, her posture was as perfect as it ever was; and still, it only made him sweat harder under his fur. 

“You’re still looking at me.”

“So are you,” he returned. “Every time you finish a stitch. I never noticed before.”

She did not look pleasingly affronted, as he imagined. Instead, her lips pinched tight, like his words hurt. “I always have been.”

“Oh,” he managed. His mind froze over like the Night King himself had touched it. 

Sansa turned to the window, averting her eyes. He wanted to say more, but found he couldn’t make his mouth move; the silence was speaking for him, and it was more than he wanted to hear.

* * *

It was black outside, and Sansa slept behind him as he squinted in the dim light. Only a short while ago a maid knocked on his door thrusting a cloth and cold bowl of water at him, and he’d had to wave her off — no doubt it was Bess, as she huffed something about _stubborn men_ as she left. 

He returned to his place at his desk, where he’d sat down to direct a letter to Jon.

Shifting her eyes about, Sansa denied his request to have her write the letter to Jon herself, to prove the tale true. If he deigned to guess why — which was not, he would admit, particularly difficult — it was because she was still hurt by Jon’s behaviour. In what specific aspect he could not name, but he harboured grievances himself, even if he did not voice them. 

There was no way to explain Sansa’s return but to write it bluntly. Perhaps Jon would appreciate the effort; the white wolf had been ever tired of his long and rambling musings as boys. 

Neither was there a way to force Jon to accept him as sovereign of his former home. Unless he could put upon a different shape and not be Theon, that had done all he did. 

The feather hovered in the air until the candle at his side was burned down to almost a stub. Setting his mouth into a grim line, he fought his own hand to press down and begin.

* * *

One night, he took her out into the snow. 

“I had forgotten,” she breathed, in a daydream, watching the flakes land on her palms. It was a sight he sorely missed, the wonder in her face, the gentle outstretch of her fingers, eager and waiting. He spent so many hours watching her talk with her subjects in this courtyard.

The thing that needled his tongue for days, restless and unyielding, danced on the tip at the sight of Sansa surrounded by snow. He weighed the consequences of saying it, the words that had hung between them for nigh on a year when she was crowned, and the words he’d said a thousand times kneeling beneath the godswood. They were, assuredly, _I love you_. 

But he didn’t. Instead, he watched her enjoy the snow, and let her be: to tell her was to unload an anchor of weight on her, and he would never want that. Not when she already carried so much. 

“Come out here, Theon,” she called, soft as a bird’s song. Upon his silent reply, she smiled a little. “It is not rain, but I will keep you warm, I promise. Take my hand.” 

He gave in, as he always did at her any request; and it _was_ a request, softly spoken and softy received. She held out her palm for him. “There,” she remarked, when their fingers were interlaced, “Now look up.”

He did, reluctantly — for he had been looking at her, and he much preferred that to any other sight — and sucked in a breath. The night sky was dazzling, as he never saw it before. The twinkles of the stars reached out, long beams of light that traced the edges of others; companionship, even in such a cold, wide expanse. 

He thought, once, that he was to lead a solitary life, shut up against all the wonder and love a man could experience. The stars seemed determined to blind him with their brightness, desperate for his attention, but he welcomed the message — he was not alone, and had never been: for there was someone coming for him, sent by a row of trickster deities to release his shackles and let him see the stars again. 

His mouth moved before he could silence it. “I noticed...” 

“Noticed what?” she asked, still looking up, when it was clear he’d stopped mid sentence.

“I wanted… I only wanted you to know that I _did_ notice. That you were looking at me.” He would’ve winced at how naive he sounded, but the calm of the night comforted him.

Sansa’s arm brushed against his. “It’s no matter.” 

“It is, Sansa. It is.” He turned to her intending to make her look at him, but she was already doing so. It almost smugly proved her point, and he found the implications of that wiped all language from his mind. “I…”

His mouth tied itself up. He still could not say it, as forcefully as he tried. _I have wept and said them, I have laughed and said them, in the dark and in the day, to the tree and to myself, and yet I still cannot bear them to pass in front of her…_

She only squeezed his hand, face sympathetic. “I understand. You were kind about it, at least, where many men would not be.” She ducked her head, a guileless acceptance in the movement. “Let me stay a while longer, and then we’ll return to your chamber.”

“Of course,” he said swiftly, unable to say anything else. “Stay as long as you like.” He would stand there all the night and into the dawn, if she wanted.

* * *

Sansa had taken to sneaking about the castle. Never would he have known if not for her own admission, the evening after their adventure into the snow. 

“Your servants think you mad,” she told him. 

He stilled upon comprehending, one hand halfway to his mouth with an apple. They were her servants, too, but he supposed her memory was failing on that front. “Oh?” He bit into the fruit with a decisive _crunch_. 

“They had quite a bit to say, as I overheard. “He weeps and walks the halls like he’s a ghost… not two years past we lost Ned Stark’s eldest daughter.” The maid said that she remembered it well, and how you act presently worries them.”

He lowered himself to the chair beside hers, the apple in his mouth too gritty all of a sudden. “Did you hear any more?”

“They moved on, but I heard enough. Were you… really like that?”

Swallowing the bitty texture slowly to buy himself some time, he weighed how he wanted to answer that, if at all. He would’ve thought it was obvious. “I was.”

Instead of whatever else he’d been expecting — and he didn’t know what that was — she replied, “I’m almost angry.”

“For what? For mourning you?” She only looked at him, which chafed something awful. “What else did you expect me to do?”

“I expected you to look after yourself.” 

“You don’t _know,_ Sansa, what it was like without you.” His voice began to rise, even when he tried to stop it. “This great burden laid upon me with no one else to take it! The very _least_ I could do was weep.” He pressed his knuckles into his temple, beating away a headache. “I contemplated worse.”

He had also thought, rather naively, that she already understood. She lost just as much as him, grieved her fair share and more — who else, if not her, would understand? He had thought — well, what he’d always thought. That it did not need saying.

Standing swiftly, he intended to march to the door, and then to gods’ knows where, but she caught his hand as it brushed her shoulder. She held it there fastly, somehow unyielding and gentle in the same gesture. Keeping him in suspension. 

“I don’t want to fight,” she said, low as a whisper. 

His fingers twitched under hers. “Nor I.”

“I discovered something, when I snuck to the crypts earlier,” she said, intending to draw him back in. “To see them. I found my statue. I must’ve missed it when I came back.” 

He remembered how he wept when she’d taken her first gulping breath, and clung to her with every one following. She did not return his embrace then, for the confusion, the temporary dullness — as she described one of the nights after — but it felt like, all of a sudden, she was returning it now. An apology, of sorts. 

“What do you think of it?” he asked. 

“I cannot say I like it, though it is well made. It’s sad.” 

He thought of all those times he’d retreated to it, to sit there in the old dust and breathe in the scent of bodies, thick and cobwebbed coffins. “And the inscription?”

She had to have noticed; it was hard to ignore, the one he’d written… included, along with _daughter, sister, friend_ … _beloved,_ right at the end. By the red of her cheeks, she did. 

“It’s sweet,” she said, voice faint, and took a breath as if she wanted to say more — but he moved and broke the spell. 

Theon took his seat beside her again, pulled like the toy magnets Bran played with as a boy. “I commissioned it, with the complete support of the smallfolk. Your people have missed you.” He made sure to correct his words, so he would not make the same mistake he did in front of Yara. 

“They’re _your_ people,” Sansa countered, eyes stuck to his own face. 

“They’re— I—“

“Yours,” she reiterated. “Longer than they’d ever been mine.” At this, she put her hand at his neck, like she wanted to soften the blow. 

“I’m no Stark.”

“Not in name, but…”

“There will always be those loyal to your family.” Most of the North had not tossed him off the throne for love of her, and equal fear of her ghostly retribution; he held no illusions about that.

“I don’t doubt it. But it’s clear they’ve no complaints about you.” 

He was starting to feel uncomfortable. “Sansa, I never wanted this.”

She looked like she believed him, but her face hadn’t changed, eyes still stuck on him; that was not the issue. 

“Sansa?”

Using the hand on his neck as leverage, she pulled him forward and kissed him. 

They kissed before, a very long time ago, which had driven him to untangle himself from her in any way he could, save his professional assistance. It split them in a way nothing else could, no other man nor woman or enemy; that was, at least, true to the stories. There was nothing that could kill like love. 

This one was different, including the way he held no hesitation in reciprocating. At once floating and falling, he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close, so close that nothing could split them again, squashed together in the most delightful of ways. 

Yet, there was something else in this kiss, a smite sad, as Sansa was feverish compared to his assured amble. It tasted like a last meal before a hanging, a drink of rum before the waves crashed over the deck. A sweet comfort for a long fall. _No matter,_ he dismissed it. _Whatever comes, I will face it._

“I have missed you,” he murmured against her skin. Ashamed, he realised he had not told her so since her return. He parted his lips from hers, eyes clouding, feeling half-intoxicated as if he had just tasted the sturdiest wine. “So desperately. Every day. Every night. I never married—“

She kissed him again, swallowing the words. But he had been long without her and long with regrets for what he dared not say. “Sansa, let me speak,” he tried against her mouth, yielding to her will anyway. He carried on a moment before moving back. “I never married.” 

“You already said that,” she breathed. Her arms were wrenchingly tight around his neck, like to hold him there if the ground fell from beneath their bodies. 

“I want you to hear it,” he insisted. “I never told you anything that I felt. I was a coward, even then. Your hand by day and Theon by night and still I couldn’t not gather my wits enough to tell you that I am devoted to you.” The lock on his tongue lifted, a most spirited high replacing the cage that held him in. “I was then and I am now.” 

Exhaling the smallest breath, she leaned forward the barest inch until their noses touched, no words conjured, but he knew her well enough to know why.

“You are worried that a man cannot love that long.” He held her tighter. What if, to a man such as he, the meaning and measure of a kiss was quite different to him than to her? 

Other men could have kissed her, though it grieved him to realise — and their promises nothing more but whispers in the wind. 

“Most have more mistresses than sense. Kings more than any.”

“Then let me assure you, I have been with no other.” He kissed her chastely. “I have thought of no other.” She did not reply. “Do you not believe me, Sansa?”

She shook her head lightly against him. “I do, but… we were not promised. You were free to be with who you will.”

“Those maids were right,” he admitted. “I did weep and walk the halls. I laid awake in this very bed and prayed I would wake up the next day and it would all be a nightmare. You have slept long, and soundly, while I have had no sleep at all.”

She laid a lovingly gentle caress across his head, from the top of his hair to the clipped strands at his neck. “I am sorry for it.”

“I cannot blame you for thinking me unloyal,” he said, continuing against her protest, “but I would have been, to you. For the rest of my life.” 

“I believe you,” she answered, in the softest of tones, like it was more for herself than him. “Would you do something for me, Theon?”

“Anything.”

“Get me out of this room.” He felt, rather than saw, the smile at her lips.

“Soon,” he agreed. He deliberated confessing, but the trust she showed persuaded him. “To tell the truth, I have wanted you all to myself.”

That made her smile wider. “And I have wanted you. For now…” Her eyes shifted to the sheets of the bed they sat on. His bed, ostensibly. 

They slept side by side many a night before her death, for want of warmth and to chase away nightmares — he _had_ thought that, before, but knew better now that it was to be with each other, even when he’d done nothing but deny them the chance. This week they slept the same, but it would be different tonight. 

He relinquished a hand at her waist to draw her face back to his, but she was already moving to meet him, the two of them sinking down to his plain, unkingly resting place, but tonight it would house a queen. He would see it so.

* * *

He was accosted while walking the halls the following morning.

“Dear gods your grace what faults we have committed!” came a cry around the corner, from his favourite of his maids, Bess. “We stood by while such horrible an event — oh, I cannot speak!” The woman hid her face beneath her forearm. Her daughter, Anne, who had patched up many of his nighttime bruises met his eyes solemnly. 

“What troubles you women so?”

“It is the queen,” Anne answered.

“There is no queen.”

“Not at present, but in the past!” Bess waggled her arms about. “We have seen her spirit glide through these halls.”

Theon looked between the two of them, trying his best to suppress the flush that went through him. “...Ah. What did she look like?”

“A lithe, thin figure haunts the passages at night… she wears a dark dress the colour of twilight that scuffs the floor as she drags herself along, and although it was dark, Anne swears her hair was red.”

Theon was forced to stop himself from laughing. Ghosts were as deadly regarded here as with the ironborns, and if it was true, he would in truth be afraid. “Gods be good…”

Anne nodded. “Aye, your grace! We cannot see any reason for her to haunt us… her murder was found and tried… unless it was _not_ her murderer, and she will curse us until the revenge is finished?” 

“Oh let the gods save us!” Bess cried. 

“Does all the castle know?” he asked. 

“Not all, but most,” Anne answered. “I have not been the only one to have seen her. Isabella saw her two nights ago and George whispered in my ear that on his kitchen duty he saw three rolls of bread disappear into thin air.” 

“This is grievous indeed,” he remarked lowly, crossing his arms. “Well, whatever can we do about it?”

Anne and Bess shared a look as Anne spoke again. “Right the wrong, your grace. Murder of royal blood is an awful sin, bigger than most! The man has cursed us. No wonder she searches for her killer.” 

Bess burst out, “I know a few candidates!”

Theon quickly hid a laugh behind a cough. “Who is the first?”

“Uto the baker has a stern state and walks too quick for a man without troubles.”

“Aye, you’re too right!” her daughter agreed. “And that kitchen hand Jacobs —“

“What’s wrong with Jacobs?” he asked, worrying his lip to press down the smile. 

“His hair is odd.”

“He is a royal murderer for his odd hair?”

Anne frowned like it was obvious. “No one has bad hair that doesn’t have bad judgment, and murdering a queen so fine as our late one is bad judgment indeed.”

It was the greatest labour any man had undertaken not to laugh, long and loud, just when his spirits were highest, when this so-called ghost had kissed him last night and left a skip in his step. 

Bess flapped her flannel urgently. “The rumour grows and soon it will start to scare people, your grace! And then what will we do?” 

He nodded solemnly as best he could, but it came out as a frantic sort of twitch. “Aye, I’ll take care of it.” 

“Be careful!” The two maids called as he walked on, turning to each other to continue their gossip. 

* * *

Theon told Sansa of his plan to show her to the world, to quiet the rumours and release her from this cage, his chamber.

Oddly, she was silent when he described how he would do it, bring her to Winterfell’s yard and let the people see her, let them spread the truth far and wide across the North. They went to bed and she was still silent, which he resolved to let be for the moment. 

Waking in the night was an all too common occurrence during Theon’s life, but he expected a new warmth to be at his side, which he rolled to capture again. The side was cold and empty. 

Sansa was at the window, thankfully disguised in enough darkness to blur her familiar figure. But he could see something that bothered him greatly, made him sit up and pay attention. 

“Sansa?” He steadied himself to rise, fumbling, and padded over to the window. “What’s wrong?”

The wet lines on her face were reflected by the moon, two pale streaks of ivory that glimmered as she turned away to hide. “Tis nothing,” she sniffled. 

He knew immediately that he would not pry it out of her by force. Not a man alive could force Sansa to reveal secrets. Instead, he approached her differently, offering his hand instead, and then his arms, winding their way across her body, one around her middle and the other in her hair. 

He pulled her gently into his chest, which unwound something in her he thought he would never see again — innocence, naked and unashamed. She eagerly buried herself into him, weeping like she did as a child who’d taken every loss as bad as the last, clutching around his waist. Her grip was tighter than it ever was as a babe, but he was unaccustomed to the plain _need_ in it. 

“Sansa,” he tried eventually, when her cries overwhelmed him, “Tell me, I can help. I’ll do anything.”

“That’s just it!” She raised her face, struck with tears and distress. “You mustn’t love me.” 

It felt as if she’d thrown an anvil at him. “Why not?”

“I—“ she paused to think, which made him wary. “I am not the same.”

“Do you not feel the same?” The stupor of sleep made his hand heavy to move, and he wrapped it through her hair, savouring each strand as it passed his fingers.

That fear that haunted him came back again, a thousand strong. He thought it himself, but knew he could worry badly… perhaps he’d been right all along. “Do you not love me anymore, Sansa?”

“No!” She gripped his arms with a fierceness. “I mean— yes— I have, I _do,_ love you.”

“Then what—“

“But you musn’t, you musn’t. I will ruin your kingship.” She swallowed, moving closer to implore him with her wide eyes. “I hear how they speak of you, their love for you.”

“It’s _your_ _home—“_

“If they see me there will be civil war!” She shook him, which frightened him how much it reminded him of another time. “And I would rather die than hurt my home, and I would rather die than hurt you. Do you not see?”

She gave a shaky breath, leaned forward to press a fierce kiss to his lips, and buried herself back into his chest. 

* * *

The following morning he was proven the silliest man in Westeros. What woman wept in your arms, kissed you, and stayed? 

He should have known she’d make herself scarce, and she’d even warned him so, giving him a hint into that spirally mind that she gave to no other. 

Theon awoke without the weight on his chest he’d fallen asleep with, moving a hand across it as if to hold in the wound, and when his wits came back to him he fled his chambers faster than a rabbit with a fox in pursuit. 

A few servants gave surprised yelps as he raced by. Bess and her daughter collapsed against the door frame, staring after him with twin lustful gazes. But Theon heeded no one, bursting through one of the back doors of the castle; the servant’s entrance — one of — that he knew she would use, because it had easier access to the horses than the frontways. Once, Reek taught her how to hide in shadows, and once she knew how to escape, she could do it again. 

“Sansa!” he called out — for there she was, red-eyed and pulling the bottom of her cloak out from the bag it was trapped under, heading toward the packed cart. The thing was balanced by four wheels that made his heart slam against his chest to recognise — “Stop! Wait!” 

Like a deer on the end of a bow and arrow, Sansa spotted him and hastened herself, throwing the bag she’d been holding onto the cart recklessly and following it up. 

If the portly cart driver took any notice of his King in his underclothes he made no noise of it, dropping the reins and facing away politely as if he’d never seen such a sight. 

Theon slammed into the end of the cart, gripping the sides hard to stop it moving. “Where are you going?”

At once surprised and agonised, she choked back tears. “I don’t know. Anywhere.”

“Come back down, please.” Before he finished speaking, his arms were already pushing him up onto the cart, catapulting himself toward her like he could stop her escape with just his body. 

“Go,” Sansa commanded the driver, but he put in his own command, a hurried “Don’t.” Then he added, “He’ll listen to his King. You’ll have to find a treasonous man to drive you.” He pushed himself up from where he’d been kneeling beneath her to sit beside her instead. “How could you just run away?”

It occurred to him that he’d been very good at running, once, and wondered where his newfound hypocrisy had come from. Evidently Sansa noticed this, and ignored him; “I’m going.”

“Then I’m coming with you.”

“I’ll push you off,” she threatened, even with her puffy eyes and warbling voice. 

“Try it, I’m heavier than you.” He titled his weight and upended the cart, just to prove the point. 

They stared each other down for a long moment until he started to shiver. It was an unusually cold morning, and he’d come out in his white undershirt, a paper thin, long sleeved thing that was more for his modesty than comfort. Thankfully, he was wearing trousers, having put them on in the middle of the night to comfort Sansa at the window. 

“It’s the only way,” Sansa said solemnly, having accepted she could not get rid of him physically. “I’ll find a cottage somewhere, change my name and dye my hair again, pretend I’m the daughter of a dead soldier or some other… I’ll disappear, and I’ll never be a threat to you again.”

“A _threat?”_ he repeated, feeling like he was on the wrong end of a trade negotiation, one where his partner knew something he didn’t. “A threat to me, Sansa? You?”

“You’re king,” she reminded him slowly, as if he’d forgotten. “A very good one.”

“Aye…” he watched her, but she said no more. “I know it was not easy between us when I came back. I wanted to help, that was why I accepted your offer. I always thought that maybe, if the world was different…” _if I had been some mighty prince, in a land of sun and happiness, who could give you flowers from the forest without remembering being hunted in them_. “I was scared.”

“I was too,” she said, which surprised him. “That’s why I have to go. If I didn’t love you so much —“

“But I don’t understand!” He leaned forward, close enough that she could grab him and kiss him again. “ _Why?”_

“Why do so many half bastards go into hiding?” she urged, frustrated. “Why are so many wars waged? I’m abdicating, Theon!”

 _Oh._ Everything made sense suddenly — the weeping, the running, the evasion, last night’s cryptic conversation. Yara always made fun of him for being thick as soup.

“It’s not the only way, I promise,” he said finally, almost smiling, thinking on what he planned for this morning. He could not fully smile, though, not when she looked so wholly miserable: he reached out and took both of her hands. “Come back, just for a day. A day. That’s all I ask.” 

* * *

There was something she did not quite understand. Maybe it was the time apart, the years for him and endless time for her, but she had forgotten. It was that which persuaded him to gather onlookers and prepare a speech, all crowded in the misty morning yard of Winterfell. He was dressed, thankfully. 

The servants, the blacksmith and his apprentices, the butcher, the baker, the miller and all guards to spare gathered to hear their king speak. Even a significant many from Wintertown filed in, dressed in thinner rags than those of his men, and Theon resolved to ask for more pelts in the next trade shipments. 

Sansa was there, on the other side of the scaffold, watching him as he watched the people, waiting, he hoped, in curiosity and not fear. Once, he’d stood just here, turned around and unveiled his awful farmer’s boys… she had not seen it, but imagination could do worse than what reality wrought. 

Satisfied the crowd had grown enough, and not one to jest longer than he need, Theon cleared his throat. “You must recognise who is right in front of you, friends.”

Every eye turned to Sansa, who fidgeted under their combined stares. Gasps erupted across the crowd. “The ghost!” one cried. Another jostled his friends and cried, “ _Lady Stark!_ ” 

“She is no ghost,” he assured, smiling at the old title. “A red priestess came to me, and as repentance for her sins offered me my heart’s desire. The old gods answered my prayers.”

He lifted the silver crown in his hair high above with both hands, allowing all the crowd to see. Sansa was wide-eyed, and let out a harsh breath as he brought it down to his chest. Swiftly, he crossed the distance between them and, ignoring her bewildered stare, tucked the crown on her head. 

Then he knelt before her, subservient; willingly, gladly. Her subject. 

Her eyes were begging him to move, but he refused — a thousand winter winds could not budge him. “You recognise her, don’t you? As I do.” He forced himself to swallow the mountain in his throat. “She is Sansa Stark, blood of Winterfell.”

As part of his show he wanted to look into as many eyes of the crowd as he could, to convince them and show them it was true, but now that the two of them had locked eyes he found he could not make himself turn away.

There was a stretched pause as the people studied he and Sansa, but all at once they broke out into a resounding cheer, applause and merriment washing through the crowd. “Your grace! Your grace!” came the revering shouts, building and building.

There were tears in Sansa’s eyes, but they seemed mournful rather than the happy ones he hoped for. Feeling all of the air flatten out him, he rose from his knees and leaned down to her ear. “Speak with me in private?”

* * *

Even though he requested this, Sansa led the way, taking the first turn into one of the many abandoned rooms in Winterfell. He remembered a time when this castle was bustling, no cobweb in any corner, but the room she’d chosen was dusty, holding only a simple storage chest. This might’ve been a room he and his ironborn raided, or Ramsey, or both; either way, little was left of it. 

Sansa was inspecting it with the same knowing eye he had, and he relished the chance to speak first.

This morning had been a tense one. The red dawn was calling a warning, as rich as mulled wine and as warm, filling his insides with hot swirls until all of his limbs gave in. The warning he already knew, the night before fresh in his mind. But still he laid there ceding to the glorious sunlight, Sansa in his arms; she’d slept there despite her protestations, and he loathed to wake her in the knowledge she would untie herself from his side. 

True to his anticipation, she turned away with a sharp pain on her face, and when he’d fallen asleep again, she tried to run when dawn came. This, that miserable expression she wore, was the one he had done all of this for. 

“Did you forget me, down there?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, turning to watch him. 

“I mean… how much did you forget? Do you remember asking me to be your hand?”

“Of course,” she answered swiftly. “Why?” When he hesitated, she let out a breathy chuckle. “Is this some sort of vengeance for this morning?”

“Do you remember how I replied?”

“I do. You wrote that you’d ride with utmost haste.” 

“And after, how we repaired the kingdom together?”

“Yes,” she said, more serious now. “I remember it all.”

Even in this sad, abandoned room, he felt warm as long as he could look at her. “Then why in the world did you think I would choose a crown over you?”

Never had he taken a lover in her absence, lest he fell on his sword for the shame of it; to that end he had purposefully deprived himself… to look into another’s eyes and see their want swirling like smoke in an orb-glass… but only Sansa’s eyes looked this way, and only ever for him. 

“We’ve been given a second chance,” he told her. “I would give up the crown in a heartbeat. I would give up anything and everything, I would’ve joined you in that cottage, if that was what you’d wanted.” 

Sansa replied in nothing but her happy astonishment. And then, “You care about these people, Theon. Even when you _weren’t_ the king you cared.”

He kept his sudden smile easily. “I’ll care still when I am not.” 

“No,” she shot back. “I’ll not allow…” She suddenly remembered the crown on her head and went to grab it, but he quickly met hers with his own.

“Stop—“

“Don’t—“

“I was only king for you,” he confessed. He shook their linked hands upon her head. “Leave it there, where it belongs.”

He remembered what he had told Marco. He had done it, initially, for his love, but time had made him fond of what was not his. 

“It’s not fair,” she said.

“But it is right.” 

“They’ll war in your name.”

“I’ll tell them to disband,” he answered. 

She huffed. “You’re acting foolish—“

“Me? What of you, refusing what you’re owed?”

“I am not _owed_ anything, especially not when I would take it from you!” She tried to remove the crown again but he held her fast. “Theon!”

“If Jon heard that you had come back but _I_ was still sovereign he would slice me into four pieces.”

“You’re doing this because you fear Jon?”

“No, not fear, I’m doing this for his peace of mind,” he countered. “And mine. I could not live knowing I drove you away, like you tried this morning.”

“It will upset you.”

“Many things do.” He admitted, at least to himself, that she was right. It hurt to give up something he had grown attached to, even though he began resenting it. “But years ago I watched your coronation. I swore my fealty, so full of pride as I kneeled I could’ve sang. I’ll uphold you as the rightful sovereign of the North until I die, and there will be no argument that will move me.” 

Slowly, Sansa released her grip on the crown and he followed but not without her finding his fingers and linking them. 

“I will only take it if—” she stopped, realising something. “Theon, did you mean it when you told me you were never married?”

He nodded. 

“And you would never have married?”

“Never,” he agreed. Suddenly faced with the memories of those horrible, lonely years, he stepped closer and slotted their hands under his chin, resting on his neck. “Do you still not believe me?”

“No, I believe you,” she answered, a smile growing on her face that he did not understand. “Come back to the courtyard with me.”

* * *

He assumed she brought him back so he could formally swear his fealty in public. He knelt again when the crowd gathered back, curious eyes watching him, their king who had given up his crown.

“Duty kept me here,” he began, “wearing a name that was not mine, nor desired to be. But duty…” 

“Must keep you here again,” Sansa finished, speaking to the crowd for the first time, and they looked enraptured by their goddess returned. “The people would be grieved to part with you. _I_ would be most grieved.”

Heart hammering in chest, he waited. _What was she doing?_

“Duty is honorable, as my father will well attest,” she spoke to the crowd, but turned to him as the line was done. “You are still king, on paper?”

“On paper, I suppose, but not long till new ones will be signed.”

“Then, if we were to wed, we would make a royal pair.”

“ _What?_ ” A shock went through him, like the tree when lightning struck its bark. “If —”

“No consort, either,” she added, bowing him over yet again. “You will be my equal.”

Theon scanned the crowd in a sudden, fevered worry; but they were only staring back with passivity. “But—”

“What better way to prevent civil strife than join hands?” 

A mumble of agreement rose in the crowd.

He flushed, now, to realise he had not thought of this first: he supposed he was scared she would not have him… and then a wave of irritation for himself followed. This was precisely what divided them before her death, and here he was, almost letting it happen again. Thank the gods Sansa possessed more wit than him.

Along with the crowd, she was watching him as he turned it over in his mind, and he saw the worry on her face and in her eyes. Worry that she might have pushed him too far before he was ready, and worry most absurd of all: that he would not have her. He rose from his knees, conscious of his steady rise.

Then he asked himself if he _wanted_ to be king here, and for the first time in his life, the answer was yes.

Sansa must have seen the conclusion in his face, because she continued speaking: “Your sovereign — my dear, most treasured lord — asks you kneel beneath the tree and ask the old gods for many a man had asked.”

There came a whistle, which prompted him to do what he’d been wishing to do since Melisandre gifted her back to him. “Happily, your grace.” He was smiling now, the feeling so new and old and remembered on his lips. “Most happily.” 

The crowd erupted again, Sansa was smiling back, the two of them deafened by the cheers and whistles. Sansa rushed toward him, forgetting the people watching, and flung herself into his arms like she had only now risen from her grave. 

“My dearest Theon,” she whispered into his ear, arms clutching his back. With the world before him, he breathed in this new, crisp morning and the sweet scent of her hair. “We shall both be happy.” 

* * *

The crown shone as it caught the light. He twisted it around, checking for marks and dents — it was perfect, as far as he could see. A perfect piece for a perfect woman. 

“Try it on, would you?” he asked, turning and holding it out. 

Still sat on the bed, Sansa smiled and rose, taking it from him. “Silver?”

“To match.” 

Her smile grew wider as she inspected it. “This master painter of yours will have hard work ahead of him to do it justice, is he good?”

“He’s a man of many talents,” he answered cryptically. Oslo was the biggest thorn in everyone's side, but Theon quite liked the bard, political scheming aside. He lectured Oslo in how to behave in front of Sansa while the three of them — Marco joined in when it looked like the old frame would flatten he and Oslo — made space in the hallway to hang the portrait he was to paint; there would, especially, be no talk of forced engagements and lord’s daughters if Oslo wanted to keep his prized lute in one piece. 

Sansa joined him at the mirror. They were both dressed in their finest, the last missing piece slotted in as she added her crown, the same two wolves he wore. His drapery was more colourful than it had ever been, and hers too; blacks mixed with gold, lining the edges and the necklines.

He found he could look long into the image of them, at her, but that was obvious; what was most surprising was that he could look into his own eyes and not look away. The finery was just that, finery — a fine and pleasing display, but he knew the man underneath the wealth and power. He did not seem so awful… he had a wife, now, that he loved more than all, a certain peace of mind, and work he was good at. 

“You are ready, my dear?” Sansa asked, draping her arms around his neck and pressing herself into his back. 

“Aye,” he answered, but caught her hand. “Are you happy, Sansa?”

She snuggled herself into his neck, looking at him in the mirror’s reflection. “What a curious thing to ask.”

“And your answer?”

“Yes, Theon,” she replied in a laugh, pressing a chaste kiss to the soft skin above his collarbone. “Are _you_ happy?”

“Sometimes I wonder if I can be.” He had not meant it to sound insulting, but he flushed as it left his mouth. “Not that any of it is fault of you. It—”

“I understand.” She shook him gently. 

“I only… I have long wondered what happiness is, and what one might do to obtain it. I have found no happiness in what other men have been and done.”

“Because you are not other men.”

The thought made him smile a little. “I think I am as fallible as other men.”

“And just as silly,” she teased. 

“You think I’m being silly?”

“Yes, a little.” She let out an amused puff of breath that warmed his neck. “You agonise over nothing! I am content with what I have, for it is far more than I had before — food, safety, my home, and a man I love. I have as best a life as anyone will see in Westeros. Why shouldn’t I be happy? Why shouldn’t _you_ be happy?”

“You are right, as you often are.” He kissed her hand and turned to face her. The twin crowns on their heads were visible in the mirror, but they stuck out to him more in the real image. “You will stay with me, Sansa?” He looked into her heady eyes, ran his thumbs over her knuckles. “You will rule with me, and I with you?”

“Always,” she said. “Now come, our people are waiting.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title "King of the Commons" is from James V of Scotland who would, according to legend, dress up as a common man and travel around the country. There is also, of course, Richard III, who is thought to have killed his nephews, the two Princes in the Tower. The comparison George RR Martin makes is an interesting one, considering how sympathetic Theon is as a character, and the apparent switcheroo he pulled with Bran and Rickon. I began thinking what kind of king Theon might be off the back of his own character development, and here we are.


End file.
